by Hugh Thomas
Admiral Buiza then ordered the fleet to sea (including the three remaining largest ships, the cruisers Miguel de Cervantes, Libertad and Méndez Núñez, and eight destroyers), with Galán’s agreement since he, Galán, sought sanctuary on board the Libertad, after having been briefly detained by the chief of staff of the base, Colonel Fernando Oliva. Galán resigned. Negrín appointed the naval under-secretary, Antonio Ruiz, to succeed him.1 The communist ex-minister Jesús Hernández, acting on his own responsibility as commissar-general of the army, dispatched the 4th Division, including a tank unit from the base at Archena, under a communist officer, Colonel Joaquín Rodríguez, who had begun his war career in the Fifth Regiment, to Cartagena. By mid-afternoon, both the falangist and the anti-communist rising had been suppressed. A nationalist warship, the Castillo de Olite, which arrived with 3,500 soldiers on board, was sunk when it came to reinforce the falangists.2 The other nationalist naval vessels were held back in time. But the republican fleet remained at sea, and, indeed, gave itself up to the French, who requested Buiza to surrender in Bizerta. Thus the republic lost its three cruisers, eight destroyers and many small craft.3
In Valencia, something similar occurred: General Aranguren, the military governor, declined to hand over to Lister and, with General Menéndez of the Levante Army, prepared to resist with force. La Pasionaria and Manuel Delicado, who had been in Murcia, drove up to Elda to report on what had occurred at Cartagena: on their way, they were fortunate to escape arrest by a squad of assault guards acting for the socialist governor of Murcia, Eustasio Cañas, who had given orders for the arrest of communists, in support of Casado.4
In Madrid, six ministers of Negrín’s cabinet—Giner, Velao, Paulino Gómez, Segundo Blanco, Moix and González Peña—were lunching in the central government building. They were joined for coffee by Casado, who later said that each minister privately expressed to him his despair at Negrín’s policy. Casado explained that he had no intention of accompanying them to Elda. Giner, who had been minister of communications throughout the war, telephoned to Negrín to suggest a postponement of the cabinet. Negrín answered so fiercely that the ministers set off immediately, though without Casado. At seven o’clock, Negrín telephoned Casado yet again, ordering his presence. Casado replied that he would come if the situation were no worse. Half an hour later, Casado moved his headquarters to the treasury, an easily defended eighteenth-century building of distinction in the Calle Alcalá, near the Puerta del Sol. There he met Besteiro. The anarchist 70th Brigade under Bernabé López, from Mera’s Army Corps, established itself around the building. Casado allowed himself to be named president of the new national council, after Besteiro had declined (he did agree to act as foreign secretary). Casado later gave way to Miaja who, through fatigue, gloom, realism and opportunism, was shortly persuaded to join the plotters. Casado then took upon himself the portfolio of defence. The other members of the council were Wenceslao Carrillo, the socialist ex-director general of security under Largo Caballero; González Marín and Eduardo Val, of the CNT; Antonio Pérez, of the UGT, and Miguel San Andrés and José del Río, both republicans.1 None were well known except for Besteiro. These men, nevertheless, took respectively the portfolios of the interior, finance, communications, labour, justice and education. Sánchez Requena, a member of Pestaña’s unsuccessful syndicalist party, was secretary. This junta broadcast a manifesto at midnight on 5–6 March:
Spanish workers, people of anti-fascist Spain! The time has come when we must proclaim to the four winds the truth of our present situation. As revolutionaries, as proletarians, as Spaniards, as anti-fascists, we cannot endure any longer the imprudence and the absence of forethought of Dr Negrín’s government. We cannot permit that, while the people struggle, a few privileged persons should continue their life abroad. We address all workers, anti-fascists and Spaniards! Constitutionally, the government of Dr Negrín is without lawful basis. In practice also, it lacks both confidence and good sense. We have come to show the way which may avoid disaster: we who oppose the policy of resistance give our assurance that not one of those who ought to remain in Spain shall leave till all who wish to leave have done so.
The plotters were on shaky ground: Negrín’s government was legally constituted. As events were to show, too, Negrín’s policy had logic behind it, and the council were unable to fulfil the promise in the last sentence.
Besteiro, Casado and Mera spoke. The first demanded the support of the legitimate power of the republic which, he added, was now nothing more than ‘the power of the army’: strange echo of the sort of speech that might have been made by Franco in 1936.1 Casado concentrated on an appeal to all in the trenches, on both sides. ‘We all want a country free of foreign domination. We shall not cease fighting till you assure us of the independence of Spain,’ he added, for Franco’s benefit, ‘but if you offer us peace, you will find our Spanish hearts generous.’2
Negrín was presiding over a cabinet meeting at Elda. Matallana was with him. It was he who answered a telephone call from Casado. ‘Tell him I have revolted,’ Casado said. Negrín took the telephone: ‘What is going on in Madrid, General?’3 ‘I have revolted,’ answered Casado. ‘Against whom? Against me?’ ‘Yes, against you.’ Negrín told him that he had acted insanely. Casado answered that he was no general, but a plain colonel, who had done his duty as ‘an officer and as a Spaniard’.4 The telephone rang often that night between Elda and Madrid; Negrín tried to find someone to arrest Casado. But no one would.
Next day, Casado arranged that Miaja should take over as president of the national council. He told General Menéndez to tell Negrín that, unless Matallana, under arrest at Elda, were released within three hours, he would shoot the entire cabinet. Matallana was released—though not before he had (falsely) declared himself at Negrín’s disposal in respect of the revolt at Cartagena. Meantime, Casado appointed the anarchist Melchor Rodríguez, famous as a humane director of prisons, to be mayor of Madrid, ordered the red stars to be stripped from the uniforms of the army, and suppressed all the recent promotions. But Maija became lieutenant-general, a rank abolished by Azaña in 1931.
Negrín wavered. Jesús Hernández arrived at Elda to ask what was to be done. ‘For the moment,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘nothing. We are thinking of what to do.’ This vacillation continued all day. The Russian advisers, however, knew very well what to do. Hernández drove north to the headquarters of General Iaborov, in the Valencian farm, ‘El Vedat’, and found it in disorder and the general, who had succeeded General Maximov as head of the Russian military mission, in a high state of excitement. ‘We are leaving, we are leaving,’ he told Hernández without ceremony.1 Sub-Commissar Castro Delgado and Commissar Delage secretly left Madrid to ask the communist leadership if they ought to order the communist-led divisions to march on the capital. They discovered La Pasionaria, Lister and Modesto in a splendid country house near Elda, run as a hotel by the poet Alberti and his wife, María Teresa León. Also present were Pasionaria’s secretary, Irene Falcón, Tagüeña (escaped from Madrid) and some others. Indecision reigned, in an atmosphere of unreality. Good meals were served. Members of the central committee and commissars paced about, like weekend guests in a country house, uncertain precisely what to do with their time. Alberti walked sadly under the trees outside. Togliatti was deciding what to do.2
Even if Stalin desired to abandon Spain to its own resources, the Spanish communists could surely not contemplate, after such expense of energy, that an unknown colonel like Casado should take over authority, ignoring the communist party. Yet the alternative course seemed the risky one of using against him the communist-led divisions around Madrid, together perhaps with the guerrilla units under communist orders (the 14th Corps, under Major Domingo Hungría). The project seemed uncertain, since many republicans, who would not otherwise have taken sides, would rally to Casado if there were to be a civil war within the Civil War. Commanders such as Burillo, Prado, Camacho and Pedrero, of the SIM, had shown themselves to be f
riends of the communists of the moment only. Miaja, with his reputation inflated by communists, was also shown to be less than loyal to his mentors.
Negrín was thus in a difficult position. Doubtless he was aware that Casado would not hesitate to arrest him if he could, and leave him in gaol to be handed over to Franco, if he did not shoot him himself. He was a politician without a party, as well as a war leader without an army. The once immensely powerful Negrinistas had been reduced to a small group of ministers sitting, like their leader, in a country house, wondering how they could get to Paris. The great communist party now seemed to have dwindled to a group of leaders who, having antagonized the revolutionaries by their counter-revolution, had outraged the bourgeoisie by their cruelty, opportunism and mendacity. Now they were almost alone: leaders with no followers.
Negrín made last-minute attempts to prevent strife. The anarchist minister of education, Segundo Blanco, whose loyalties were ambiguous, made an unsuccessful effort at compromise. Casado, on the other hand, was attempting to secure the arrest of the government, and of the communist leaders, to offer to Franco, no doubt, as prizes. Chaos prevailed throughout republican Spain. The commanders of the different armies were the effective rulers. No one knew the whereabouts of his colleagues. Party or union membership seemed irrelevant. At the small air base at Monóvar, a few miles away from Elda, Negrín, his staff and the communist leaders assembled. There were Alvarez del Vayo, Uribe and Moix, of his government; Hidalgo de Cisneros, the air chief; Lister, Tagüeña and Togliatti. La Pasionaria flew off to Algiers with the Navarrese communist Monzón.1 Hidalgo de Cisneros telephoned a message calling on the junta at Madrid to settle its differences with Negrín. Until half past two in the afternoon, the small band waited at the airport for Casado’s answer. The central committee of the communist party held its last meeting: Togliatti told the few members present that the national council of defence was the only government in Spain, that to fight it was to begin another civil war, and that the only recourse was to save the greatest number of communists.2 A manifesto was put out to this effect, written by Togliatti.3 Alvarez del Vayo played chess with Modesto. Lister, charged to organize the defence of the airport with some eighty guerrilleros, while the government was leaving, heard that it was beginning to be surrounded.1 They heard too that Alicante had passed to Casado, and that Etelvino Vega, Negrín’s newly appointed military governor there, had been arrested. The old government waited no longer, giving up Spain for lost. Jesús Hernández, Togliatti and Pedro Checa stayed behind to try and organize a semblance of a communist party in clandestinity. At three o’clock in the morning, the three last aeroplanes of Negrín’s government left the little airport: two set off for France, the other, which had less capacity, went to Africa. Before setting off, the communist from Seville, Manuel Delicado, pressed into the hand of each refugee a pound note.2
Back in Madrid, however, the cause of resistance (to whom? to Franco, to Casado, or to both?) was not yet lost. If the government and the communist leaders had fled, the communist-led divisions around Madrid were of a mind to fight. They received no approval from the party leaders to do so, for communications were cut. It was not the first time that a communist party has taken two contradictory policies at the same time. Barceló moved in with his 1st Army Corps to close all the entrances to the capital. He occupied the ministries at the Castellana, the Retiro Park and the old headquarters of the Army of the Centre at the Alameda de Osuna. Three of Casado’s colonels and a socialist commissar were shot.3 Colonels Bueno and Ortega sent troops from the 2nd and 3rd Army Corps to support Barceló. Thus most of the centre of Madrid passed into communist control. Only a few government buildings were in the hands of the Casadistas. Nevertheless, there was confusion, and the only leaders of the central committee still in Spain (Togliatti, Checa, with Jesús Hernández and the youth leader, Fernando Claudín) were out of contact with the armies around Madrid, being held for a time prisoners by the SIM at Monóvar.
In the afternoon, Mera’s mostly anarchist 4th Army Corps marched to relieve Casado, now holding out in the south-easterly suburbs. His 12th Division, led by Liberino González, captured Alcalá and Torrejón. Mera rapidly assumed the role of strong man in Casado’s party, being backed by his second-in-command, the socialist major ‘Paquito’ Castro.1
Throughout 8 March, fighting continued in Madrid. The communists remained in control. In the rest of Spain, Jesús Hernández succeeded in dispossessing Ibarrola from the command of the 22nd Army. Togliatti, Checa and Claudín joined him near Valencia after many difficulties. In the meantime, communists were everywhere being arrested, their party offices seized and a general campaign of persecution opening against them.
The other three armies (of the Levante, Estremadura and Andalusia) held their fire; though their commanders (Menéndez, Escobar and Moriones) had verbally pledged support to Casado, they could not have known of the reaction of their men if orders had been given to move on Madrid.2 There was some fighting in most places. Of these generals, only Menéndez would have preferred to surrender to Franco than fight Casado. In Madrid, the extent of the communist victory was such that, if they had wished, they could have dictated terms. But, abandoned by their political leaders, and out touch with Togliatti at important moments, they did not know what to do. On 9 March, Matallana told one of Franco’s agents with whom he was in contact, ‘almost with tears in his eyes’, that he hoped Franco would launch a general offensive, in order to prevent Madrid falling to the communists.3 As a result of political indecision, however, the communist commanders almost waited to be defeated. Barceló might have liked to launch a final assault on the council of defence. But his men were tired.
The following day, the communist Colonel Ortega came forward to offer to mediate between the two sides in this new civil war. (It had been he who, as director of security in 1937, had been responsible for the arrest of Nin.) During the last week or two, his loyalty too to his adopted party had been weak. According to the communists, however, this offer was made because of renewed nationalist attacks.4 Casado agreed to this mediation. In the meantime, there was a cease-fire, with the two groups still facing each other in postures of hostility. Nationalists in Madrid, meantime, reported in gloomy terms: ‘Casado appears unable to control the situation.’ Their armies had advanced some way, during the fighting in Madrid, across the Casa de Campo towards the Manzanares. By 10 March, the communists were, in effect, surrounded.
On 11 March, the communists were driven out of their positions, and many of Barceló’s and Bueno’s men passed to Casado. In the end, their commanders were captured and were ready to make peace. Casado stipulated that all units should return to their positions of 2 March. Prisoners were to be given up, commanders would be dismissed. This would leave Casado free to make his own nominations for the three communist army corps. In return, Casado pledged himself to free all ‘non-criminal’ communist prisoners, and to listen to the points of view of the communist leaders. Thus ended the civil war within the Civil War; some 230 had been killed, 560 wounded.1 The contestants had included groups from all the old columns which had sallied out so bravely in July 1936: even the remains of the Iron Column could be found in the 12th Division under Liberino González.
The communists agreed to a cease-fire. If there were no reprisals, they would act as previously against the nationalist ‘invaders’. Togliatti, back in touch, encouraged Barceló to this compromise, on the telephone from Alicante. In the same morning of 12 March, the communist forces returned to their positions of 2 March. On the following day, military tribunals nevertheless met and sentenced Barceló, his commissar José Conesa and some others to death. The sentences on Barceló and Conesa (an old member of the socialist youth and a commissar on the central front since October 1936) were carried out immediately. They were acts of retribution more than of justice. No other death sentences were given—though some others were gaoled. Outside Madrid, General Escobar and the Army of Estremadura crushed communist resistance in Ciuda
d Real directed by the communist deputy Martínez Cartón. Menéndez, still at the head of the Army of the Levante, prevented the 22nd Army Corps, now controlled by Hernández, from moving upon Valencia.
Negrín and the communists disposed of, Casado turned to his negotiations with Burgos. Both he and Matallana had remained in daily contact with Franco’s representatives during the communist week, the ‘semana comunista’ as it was described. Once free to act again, they told their new friends that they were ready to go to Burgos. But, on 16 March, the message came back that Franco was only interested in unconditional surrender.1 Casado had only to send one officer with full powers, or two at most, and they should not be outstanding leaders. While the national council considered this discouraging document, Casado himself planned the retreat of the Army of the Centre to the Mediterranean, and the expatriation of those who wished to leave. It must now have been clear to the colonel that there was little hope of serious negotiation. His task, therefore, was to gain time so as to allow those who wanted to escape to do so. During the ensuing fortnight, many managed to do this. But the means of escape were few, even for those who managed to reach the east coast ports. The council, meantime, also agreed to send junior officers, as Franco desired, to Burgos; and on 19 March, Franco agreed to a negotiation on that basis. He and the nationalist command had been busy with the redeployment of their armies, to be ready for a new offensive, should it be necessary.
