Blood of Spain_An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War

by Ronald Fraser

  General Franco to Roberto Cantalupo,

  Italian ambassador (Spring 1937)

  * * *

  Whoever desires mediation serves, consciously or unconsciously, the reds and Spain’s hidden enemies.

  General Franco (Speech, Summer 1938)

  * * *

  The surrender must be unconditional … If Madrid accepts we will not fight; otherwise we shall take it by force, it makes no difference to us.

  General Franco, telegram to his staff headquarters

  (25 February 1939)

  * * *

  MADRID

  For two weeks, from 12 March, the defence council attempted to negotiate ‘an houourable peace’ with the Burgos regime. On 15 March, Hilter marched into Prague; at the end of the month, the Anglo-French guarantee to Poland transformed the international situation. Had the republic remained intact even this short time, had it drawn up a realistic last-stand policy to use in negotiations with Burgos, the situation might have changed. As it was, there could be few illusions of success, believed Sócrates GOMEZ. It was naïve to imagine that concessions could be wrung from the enemy when defeat was inevitable, when everyone knew how the nationalists had acted in their own zone.

  —What were we to do? Besterio always believed that we wouldn’t succeed, but that we had to try. The council’s fundamental aim was to save the lives of combatants and those who, because of their political pasts, were in danger. We couldn’t abondon what was left of the republican zone, leave every man to fend for himself. Having heard from my father the details of Negrín’s intended broadcast, I felt that the council – so often accused of being liquidationist – was doing nothing other than what he had planned …

  Franco was adamant, as he had been throughout the war: only unconditional surrender. By 22 March, the defence council had accepted the principle, but was still trying to ensure one condition: the evacuation of those who wanted to leave.

  —If we couldn’t get that, the only solution was revolutionary war; this was what the libertarian movement proposed, Eduardo de GUZMAN recalled. We were all aware of the fate that awaited us if we fell into enemy hands. Málaga and the north had taught us that. We still held ten provinces, had half a million troops; we could carry out a desperate struggle for several months. A scorched earth policy, if need be, as we fought our way back to Cartagena …

  But such a threat was not made with full force. Two republican military envoys flew to Burgos to ‘negotiate’; to their question as to whether evacuation was possible, their nationalist counterparts replied by demanding that the republican air force surrender the following day, 25 March, and the army two days later. On the defence council, Wenceslao Carrillo, for the socialists, and the libertarian representatives refused to agree to surrender unless Franco signed a document agreeing on terms; the struggle would otherwise continue. On 25 March, the two envoys again flew to Burgos; but this time the talks were cut off by the nationalist High Command: the republican air force had not surrendered, and now it was too late. The final nationalist offensive was planned to start at dawn the next day, Sunday, 26 March.

  In Madrid, the libertarians agreed to implement their last-stand policy, according to GUZMAN, who was given the task of drawing up a manifesto calling for all-out struggle, warning of the fate which awaited people if there was unconditional surrender. The libertarian representatives on the council, which was meeting again, assured them that it would support the libertarian stand. They waited; the manifesto was to be broadcast at the end of the meeting.

  —Then someone rang. We couldn’t believe it. The defence council had voted against, had agreed to the enemy demand that the white flag should be raised by our forces as the nationalist troops advanced …

  At this late stage, the libertarians’ plan was no more than rhetoric, believed Sócrates GOMEZ. There was no certainty that the troops, who were now expecting surrender, were prepared to obey. The defence council’s mistake was not to have envisaged such a plan itself much earlier, not to have prepared it properly and executed it. ‘But now it was too late.’

  When the negotiations collapsed, Casado rang Col. Jaime SOLERA’S army headquarters.

  —He told me (something that I believe has never been properly reported) that in his opinion it was now necessary to resist at all costs. He himself was prepared to lead the resistance. I don’t know whether he was sincere or speaking out of despair. In any case, the order to raise the white flag on all fronts came from him, too …

  There was little else that could be done, the colonel thought. Everywhere except on the Madrid front the troops, who knew what to expect, had begun to desert.

  To organize all-out resistance while unconditional surrender was being negotiated was an evident impossibility. Once again – and now for the last time – the libertarian movement had reacted rather than taken the lead. Nowhere, with the exception of the defence of Madrid two and a half years ago, had total revolutionary war been waged. The fusion of trained combatants and civilians in desperate resistance, scorched earth and sabotage – it was too late for that now. The proletarian revolution had not developed its own revolutionary instruments and strategies of war; it had suffered defeat as a result. The communist democratic revolution had made good the deficiency by concentrating on building a war machine equal to, if not modelled on, the one it faced across the lines. The machine had appeared to many as an instrument of a single party, not proletarian pluralist, rule. The spectre of Stalinist dictatorship haunted Popular Front Spain; the repressed revolution had returned as anti-communism.

  —As the white flag was raised, the troops threw down their rifles and abandoned the lines; some fraternized with the enemy …

  In the lorry he had commandeered, Antonio PEREZ looked at the crowds of soldiers jamming the main Valencia road. There were white flags everywhere, an air of fiesta. They were singing and shouting exultantly, ‘the war is over’.

  —‘All these men are returning to their villages and to certain death,’ I said to my companion. I became tremendously depressed. We had to draw our pistols to prevent soldiers climbing onto our lorry. Finally, we were able to reach Valencia …

  While the young political commissar, newly a communist in the hour of defeat, made for the military government building in Valencia, the nationalists launched offensives around Madrid. The following day, 28 March, amid a desperate last-minute exodus, the end came for the capital: what was left of the army surrendered.

  At 8.30 that Tuesday morning, a friend of Pablo MOYA’S came to the workshop and called the UGT turner.

  —‘Pablo. You don’t still doubt that the war is over, do you?’ ‘Marcelino,’ I replied, ‘do me the favour of leaving immediately. We’re friends, and I don’t want to have a fight with you.’ That was the last day of the war. Imagine how blind, how full of enthusiasm and faith I still was. I thought the defence council still had cards in its hand, I believed the democratic countries would say, ‘It is only just that we help smooth the way to negotiations now … ’

  In the embassy where he had been in hiding for two years,18 Enrique MIRET MAGDALENA was awoken by shouts. ‘¡Viva España!’ The Catholic student thought the other refugees had gone mad. During the fighting between the communists and the Casado forces, they had been on the edge of despair, their imprisonment seemingly doomed to continue for ever. He went into the corridor and saw others throwing their sheets in the air. Madrid was free!

  —Suddenly everyone started handing out tobacco, I don’t know where they had kept it hidden for so long. We threw open the shutters. It was the first time I had seen the street for two years and nine days. I leapt out. It was true, there were people shouting ‘¡Viva España!’ …

  The fifth column was demonstrating in the streets when María DIAZ arrived in an army lorry. It was twenty-eight months since she had left the North Station as a militiawoman alongside her father to meet the enemy at the gates of Madrid; the same length of time that she had been a communist. She heard the demonstrators s
houting hysterically that they had been liberated. Running up the stairs of her uncle’s house, unable to contain her hysteria, she began screaming: ‘Ay! we’ve been liberated, uncle, liberated.’

  —‘What’s come over you, girl?’ My uncle looked at me. Then I broke down and I cried and cried …

  The scene remained engraved on his mind. The jubilant right-wingers sweeping through the working-class quarter; the workers didn’t attack them, didn’t shout back. It was the look of hatred and despair on their faces that José VERGARA, the ‘neutral’ agrarian reform expert, would never forget. ‘They knew there was nothing they could do; they had lost the war.’

  Soldiers in capes came in from the front. Alvaro DELGADO watched them throwing their rifles down in the streets. The sun was shining brightly. He walked down the street to get away from the gloom that had overtaken his home. His right-wing relatives had just telephoned to share their joy with his mother; but she wasn’t to be consoled. She hadn’t forgotten her brother, a moderate republican, who had been executed by the nationalists in Andalusia.

  The Plaza de España was crammed with demonstrators. A short time before, right-wingers in a lorry had stopped and forced her cousin in his republican military uniform to give the fascist salute. All around her, people were raising their arms outstretched. Her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s mother were doing the same. Encarnación PLAZA was frightened they would notice. But she was only a child, and no one paid any attention. Daughter of a life-long republican, she couldn’t bring herself to give the salute. Everywhere there were blue shirts. She couldn’t believe that so many falangists had been hidden in Madrid. The women impressed her most; the señoritas of the ‘good’ families from the Salamanca neighbourhood shouting: ‘At last, at last,’ and singing Cara al Sol.

  —On all their faces I saw not joy but hatred and rage. Hatred for the population amongst whom they had been living, the ordinary working people of Madrid …

  ALICANTE

  Fifteen thousand men, women and children were crammed in the port area; many of them had already spent forty-eight hours in the open waiting. Ships, insistent rumour had it, were on their way. Since the fall of Madrid on Tuesday, Alicante had become the last major possibility of escape. The refugees who poured into the chaotic conditions of Valencia from all parts of the republican zone were given only one word of hope: Alicante. A ship was waiting. By Wednesday morning, when the first large contingents reached the port, they found it empty. The ship had sailed, with only a few passengers, at dawn, the captain no doubt fearing that he would be stormed by thousands of anguished refugees determined not to be left to their fate.

  Despite efforts made to maintain morale, many were beginning to despair. The republican fleet’s desertion proved a bitter blow now. On their first night, the refugees had seen two ships, a few hours apart, approach the docks. The promised relief had at last arrived. Spirits soared. As the ships closed in, each suddenly stopped, put about and inexplicably sailed off. It was more than many could bear. With their backs to the sea and the enemy in front, the refugees felt they had been deliberately trapped in the port to make their capture and death easier. It was the last straw.

  —Defeated, we were now being betrayed. I don’t believe I could bear to relive such anguish. Seeing those boats arrive and then turn away. Too many emotions for one person to bear …

  Carmen CAAMAÑO, a librarian, clutched her newborn baby to her. It was another French and English betrayal, she was sure. She had managed to get to Alicante two days before and the captain of an English freighter had promised to take her off. But as he lowered the gangplank, twenty or more people suddenly appeared and wanted to board the ship. The master asked them to leave, he would only take her. They refused, he had pulled up the gangplank and made ready to sail. She stood on the quay watching the freighter leave.

  His eyes glued to the horizon, searching for the faintest sign of a ship, Saturnino CAROD imagined the terrible scene that would take place if a ship did finally arrive. Commissions representing all the political parties and organizations had been set up, discussions had gone on endlessly with the local consuls, especially the French, who assured them that the French navy was coming to the rescue. Ships of the Mid-Atlantic Company, which had been responsible for most of the republican maritime transport, refused to help; the company alleged that its contract was with Negrín, not Casado, and that it had not been paid. Lists and more lists of those whose political record put their lives in greatest danger had been drawn up. Each party and organization had its quota, and these would be evacuated first on the French ships. The Aragonese CNT militant and divisional commissar19 was on the list. But if a ship came that would mean nothing. There would be a bloody battle – the majority of those waiting were armed, military men like himself – because everyone was determined to embark. ‘Let’s hope the ships don’t arrive,’ he said to himself, unable to tear his eyes from the horizon and the hope of seeing a ship.

  As he stood staring out to sea, the man standing next to him with a cigarette in his mouth slit his own throat and crumpled on to the quay. Almost immediately, word came from the other end of the port that someone he knew had shot himself. Suicides spread like an epidemic; he no sooner turned to look at some people running than he heard it was because someone had thrown himself into the water. A man climbed up a lamppost and began shouting incoherently of the dangers that awaited them. At the end of his speech, he threw himself from the post and crashed on to the quay.

  —Everywhere you looked you saw desperation on people’s faces. Women were crying, children were holding on to their mothers’ hands; some men looked on the verge of madness …

  Hardly anywhere was there room to lie down. Some slept standing. María SOLANA and her husband, director of the JSU cadre school in Madrid, hadn’t eaten since their precipitate flight from Madrid where, as a leading communist youth member, he had been under arrest; only at the last moment had he managed to escape. Around them were peasants stolidly eating from ample baskets of food, without offering anyone anything. ‘But the terror of not knowing what was going to happen was even greater than hunger. No one asked them for food, let alone tried to take it from them.’

  Chief commissar of the Estremaduran army, Tomás MORA20 agreed with Carod that if a ship arrived they would not get off alive. It would end in slaughter. Suicide crossed his mind. When the ship was seen heading for the port, then turning back, he thought of climbing up a dock crane and throwing himself into the sea.

  —But then I remembered my mother, my wife and children and I thought: ‘Let them see me die rather than that’ …

  The next morning he awoke to find one of his commissars huddled in a pool of blood next to him. A professional pianist, who had returned from South America to fight, he had slashed his wrists. ‘I can face the trenches, but not prison or concentration camps,’ he had told MORA once.

  The only leading member of the Casado defence council to reach Alicante was Antonio Pérez, father.21 Rumours that Casado and the others, who were seen leaving Valencia on Wednesday, 29 March, in a convoy of cars, had been killed en route began to circulate. In fact, they had made not for Alicante but Gandía, nearer to Valencia, where a British warship was due to take off Italian prisoners of war that day.

  The arrival of a warship, which was shortly joined by two more, was certainly known to the republican authorities.22

  Shortly after noon, while the Italians were being embarked under Royal Marine escort, Casado and other defence council members, with some 200 other refugees and as many armed troops, arrived in the port. British Rear-Admiral Tovey, commanding the First Cruiser Squadron, approved a request for Casado’s embarkation, on condition that Casado and his staff ‘clearly understood that their final disposal would depend on the decision of H.M. Government’. The admiral, meanwhile, signalled for instructions as to what such ‘disposal’ should be. Earlier that day, before sailing from Palma de Mallorca, he had been informed by the British consul there that evacuation
of republican leaders would cause ‘intense resentment’ among the nationalists.

  Dramatic discussions took place among the council members as to whether to accept the British condition. While Casado hesitated, fifteen members of his ‘entourage’ embarked. Casado announced that he refused the condition and was leaving for Alicante. Many of the armed men accompanying him moved off. Shortly after, the captain commanding the Royal Marine detachment on the quay received an order to stop Casado from leaving. On the recommendation of members of the International Committee for the Coordination of Assistance to Republican Spain, Casado reconsidered his decision and, some twelve hours after reaching the port, embarked on the British warship Galatea.

  Earlier, the British consul in Valencia, who was aboard the Galatea, had received Foreign Office instructions that only those in ‘imminent danger of their lives’ could be taken off on British warships. A second Foreign Office signal told him to interpret his earlier instructions ‘in as wide and generous a manner as possible’. In accordance with this, he went ashore early the next morning to arrange for a further 143 men, nineteen women and two children to be taken aboard. ‘The type of person embarked,’ noted the rear-admiral, ‘varied from apparently respectable officers and officials of moderate tendencies, to the lowest of criminal types, and included a number of prominent anarchists and members of the SIM.’ The refugees were all transferred to the hospital ship Maine which set sail for Marseilles. The rear-admiral, meanwhile, prepared to send a warship to Alicante. That afternoon, he received a signal from the Admiralty saying that the latest Foreign Office instructions were meant solely for the British consul and did not imply any change in British government policy. He delayed, and then cancelled, the warship’s departure for Alicante.