by Paul Preston
Elsewhere, the rebels did not have it as easy as in Valladolid. Franco and the African Army were blockaded in Morocco by the Republican fleet. Anarchist forces from Barcelona were moving virtually unopposed towards Zaragoza. The overall leader of the coup, General Sanjurjo, had been killed when his plane crashed on take-off for Spain and command was assumed by Mola when he reached the neighbouring Castilian city of Burgos on 20 July. The hope of rebel forces that they would capture Madrid had come to nothing. Faced with an acute shortage of ammunition, they had been held at the sierras to the north of the capital. Mola himself was plunged into a depression by this accumulation of reverses. His spirits were somewhat revived by a visit to Zaragoza on 21 July to consult with General Miguel Cabanellas. At Cabanellas’s suggestion, they decided to create a provisional rebel government, the Junta de Defensa Nacional. Its formation was announced by Mola in Burgos on 23 July.39
This lay behind the stark reality of the repression in Valladolid. Despite the rapid success of the coup, the city witnessed a pitiless assault on the local left. The slaughter was accelerated as a result of the death of Onésimo Redondo in a clash with Republican forces at Labajos, in the province of Segovia on 24 July. When other Falangists reached Labajos, unable to find those who had killed their leader they shot a local worker and took a further five back to Valladolid where they would be executed in September.40 A requiem Mass for Onésimo at Valladolid Cathedral on 25 July was celebrated with the pomp normally reserved for national heroes. All shops in the city were closed. Redondo’s coffin, covered by a monarchist flag, was carried on a carriage pulled by six white horses. The procession was led by Falangist squads and followed by a military band and girls carrying huge wreaths of flowers. The atmosphere was heavy with a thirst for rapid revenge. After the ceremony, an emotional crowd ‘elected’ by acclamation Onésimo’s brother, Andrés, to be the Falangist Territorial Chief of León and Old Castile. Fully prepared to maintain the same violent policies as his brother, later that night of 25 July Andrés Redondo declared on local radio that ‘all Falangists have sworn to avenge his death’.41
Years later, Onésimo Redondo’s widow, Mercedes Sanz Bachiller, spoke of her conviction that her husband’s death had intensified the subsequent repression. In fact, the process of revenge against the left in Valladolid was already well under way and would gather momentum over the next few months. Large numbers of Socialist workers from the railway engineering works were herded into the tram company garages. Those who, having obeyed the union order to strike on Saturday 18 July, had not returned to work by Tuesday 21 July were shot, accused of ‘abetting rebellion’. Throughout the late summer and autumn, anyone who had held a position in a left-wing party, municipality or trade union was subject to arrest and the likehood of being paseado – that is to say, seized by Falangists, taken out and shot – or subjected to summary court martial. For many, their crime was simply to carry a membership card of a trade union or left or liberal organization. General Saliquet’s edict of martial law, published at dawn on 19 July, effectively passed a death sentence on all those who had not actively supported the uprising. ‘Crimes’ subject to summary trial and immediate execution included ‘rebellion’ (either action in defence of the Republic or failure to support the rebels) and extended to disobedience, disrespect, insult or calumny towards both the military and those who had been militarized (thus including Falangists). Men were arrested on suspicion of having their radio dials set to stations broadcasting from Madrid. Court martials were set up and firing squads began to function. In addition to the 448 men arrested on 18 July, one thousand more would be detained in August and September.42
While awaiting trial, the prisoners in Valladolid, as in most other places, were kept in appalling conditions. Because the local prison had neither the space nor the resources to look after so many inmates, two repair sheds at the tram depot were used to house prisoners. The acute overcrowding, malnutrition and the lack of basic hygiene facilities led to many deaths from sickness. In the prison, more than six prisoners were squeezed into individual cells. They were forced into icy showers and then, while still wet and shivering, made to run a gauntlet of guards who beat them with truncheons or rifle butts. Responsibility for food, clothing and laundry fell upon their families, an acute hardship given that, by dint of the arrest and imprisonment, the families had already been deprived of their principal breadwinner.43
Estimates of the scale of the repression in the province of Valladolid have varied wildly, as high as 15,000 but none lower than 1,303. Exact figures are impossible since many deaths were not recorded. The most recent local study places the figure at over three thousand.44 There were 1,300 men and women tried between July and December 1936, often in large groups. Such ‘trials’ consisted of little more than the reading of the names of the accused and the charges against them, followed by the passing of sentence. Although most of those accused of military rebellion were likely to face the death penalty or prison sentences of thirty years, they were given no chance to defend themselves and were not even permitted to speak. On most weekdays, several courts martial were held, rarely lasting more than one hour. All 448 men detained after the surrender of the Casa del Pueblo were tried together accused of the crime of military rebellion. Forty were sentenced to death, 362 to thirty years’ imprisonment, twenty-six to twenty years’ imprisonment, and nineteen were found not guilty. The selection of the forty to be executed was made on the basis of their having held some position of responsibility in the local Socialist organizations. The one woman condemned to death had her sentence commuted to thirty years’ imprisonment, although at least sixteen other women were executed in Valladolid. There were other cases in which fifty-three, seventy-seven and eighty-seven accused were ‘tried’ at once. In some cases, the ‘crime’ was simply to be a Socialist member of parliament, as was the case with Federico Landrove and also with José Maesto San José (deputy for Ciudad Real) and Juan Lozano Ruiz (Jaén) who were captured on the outskirts of Valladolid.45
Prisoners condemned by court martial were taken out in the early hours of the morning and driven in trucks to the Campo de San Isidro on the outskirts of the city. This became such a regular occurrence that coffee and churro stalls were set up for the spectators. Each evening in the Casino, members of distinguished local families, educated middle-class Catholics, would remind each other not to miss the following day’s show. Guards had to be assigned to hold back the crowds that thronged to watch and shout insults at the condemned. So shocking did this seem that the newly appointed Civil Governor of the province issued a communiqué reprimanding those who had turned the shootings into an entertainment. Declaring bizarrely that the repression should reflect ‘noble feelings and generosity towards the defeated’, he deplored the presence of small children, young girls and married women at the executions. The terror had become ‘normal’ and no one dared condemn it for fear of being denounced as a red.46 Similarly, in Segovia, middle-class ladies attended military trials, laughing and cheering when death sentences were passed. Executions in the provincial capital were praised as ‘a good bullfight’. In the tiny village of Matabuena, to the north-east of Segovia, the inhabitants were forced to watch executions.47
At least, the 616 executions carried out in Valladolid as a result of summary wartime courts martial were registered.48 In contrast, the unofficial murders carried out by the so-called Falangist ‘dawn patrols’ are impossible to quantify. These killings were significantly more widespread if rather less public. Executions were often extremely inefficient. Having augmented their courage with brandy, the squads often wounded rather than killed prisoners, who were then left to a slow death agony. Corpses were sometimes just dumped by the roadside, at other times buried in shallow common graves. On occasion, wounded prisoners were buried alive. The murders of prisoners were often carried out quite arbitrarily by Falangists who would arrive at the tram sheds or the bullring just before dawn. Macabre humour might see a victim selected simply because it was his sa
int’s day. On the basis of data from those towns and villages in the province for which it is possible to reconstruct what happened, it has been calculated that at least 928 people were murdered by the patrols. The total number is likely to be significantly higher. The random killings caused public health scares for fear that rotting corpses might be affecting the water supply.49 Certainly, by any standards, the scale of the repression was totally disproportionate to the fighting in the city on 18 and 19 July. At the end of the war, there were still three thousand detainees in the provincial prison, of whom 107 died as a result of the appalling conditions.50
The influence of Onésimo Redondo was felt far beyond Valladolid. On 23 July, a group of his most hot-headed followers carried his message to Salamanca. Initially, when news of the rising had reached Salamanca, the Civil Governor, Antonio Cepas López, the Mayor, Casto Prieto Carrasco (both of Izquierda Republicana), and the Socialist deputy, José Andrés y Manso, had been assured by the military commander, General Manuel García Álvarez, that the forces stationed in the province were loyal to the Republic. Accordingly, they refrained from calling a general strike. In fact, when García Álvarez learned during the night that Valladolid had risen, he ordered local garrisons to support the military coup. Before dawn on 19 July, machine-guns were set up in the principal squares of Salamanca. At about 11.00 a.m., a company of mounted soldiers entered the Plaza Mayor and their Captain read out the ‘edict’ declaring martial law that had been drawn up by General Saliquet. The square was crowded, mainly with people who had just come out of Mass in the Church of San Martín. The edict’s last words, a hypocritical cry of ‘¡Viva la República!’, were echoed by the majority of the crowd. However, someone shouted ‘¡Viva la revolución social!’ and fired a shot, wounding a corporal. The military unit opened fire on the crowd and four men and a young girl were killed. The terror had begun.51
The town hall, the Civil Governor’s offices, the post office, the telephone exchange and the railway station were occupied by troops. Imprisoned Falangists were released. Prieto Carrasco and Andrés y Manso tried vainly to organize resistance. However, since there were few available weapons and local left-wingers had no experience in their use, their efforts were in vain. They, along with the town’s relatively few left-wingers, liberals and those who went on strike, were arrested. A similar fate was met by the resistance in other towns in the province like Ciudad Rodrigo, Ledesma and Béjar. In Béjar, the only industrial town in the province, the local Civil Guard did not dare declare for the rebellion. Nonetheless, the town fell on 21 July with the arrival of a column of Falangists and regular troops. Four hundred people were arrested and a dozen women had their heads shaved and were paraded through the streets. In Salamanca itself, General García Álvarez named two of his officers as Mayor and Civil Governor. Apart from the rector of the University, Miguel de Unamuno, the bulk of the members of the new town council were nominees of local landowners or of the rebel military. Unamuno believed naively that his presence would be a guarantee of civility on the part of the new rulers. In fact, the town council was merely a cover of ‘legality’. The new Mayor simply exercised his authority as he would a military command.
In keeping with Mola’s instructions about the need for rapid, exemplary terror, the left was quickly crushed with notable brutality. The new Civil Governor ordered the removal of all Socialist town councils in the province and their replacement by ‘patriotic elements’. Since there had been virtually no violence in Salamanca in the months preceding the military coup, most liberals and leftists made no attempt to flee. Nevertheless, there was a witch-hunt of liberals, leftists and trade unionists.
Falangists, Carlists and members of the CEDA created a Guardia Cívica, paramilitary units which carried out a virtually uncontrolled repression that opened the way to personal vendettas and naked criminality. Cattle-breeders formed a mounted column known as the ‘hunters’ battalion’. Armed Falangist columns swooped on villages and took away those denounced as leftists. They also patrolled the border with Portugal to prevent the flight of their prey. Little by little, in towns across the province strikers were arrested and either shot or imprisoned. After interrogation and torture, some just ‘disappeared’, while others were transferred to the provincial prison. Many of those imprisoned would die of illnesses contracted in the unhygienic conditions of a building designed for one hundred prisoners but housing over two thousand during the war, twelve or more to cells intended for one or two men. The indiscriminate repression led to the collapse of public services and left local schools without teachers. All over the province, the Civil Guard hunted down the mayors who had refused to apply the edict of martial law or had declared a general strike against the coup. In villages where there was no Civil Guard post, General García Álvarez ordered local rightists to take over the town council.52
Things worsened dramatically after the arrival of Onésimo Redondo’s followers together with a unit of troops led by Franco’s friend, the notorious Civil Guard Comandante Lisardo Doval. On 23 July, the Falangists reached Salamanca in a state of heightened passion after being harangued by Onésimo at the battle front. The Falangist flag was raised over the town hall and they demanded the names of all leftists who had been imprisoned; shortly afterwards the so-called sacas began, whereby men were dragged from the prison and shot in the nearby countryside. In fact, during the spring of 1936, the local right had already prepared blacklists of leftists and liberals who were to be eliminated when the time came. Both the Mayor, Dr Casto Prieto Carrasco, and Andrés y Manso, were moderates. A professor of radiology in the Faculty of Medicine, Prieto Carrasco was a kindly and unworldly man, who preferred moral rearmament to armed struggle. He had reacted to being appointed interim Civil Governor in 1931 by inviting his monarchist predecessor to dinner. Nevertheless, he was loathed by the Catholic right in Salamanca. As Mayor in 1933, he served an expropriation order on the Catholic Hospital of the Holy Trinity on the grounds that it provided inadequate medical care for its patients. Prieto Carrasco had acted throughout in an even-handed manner.53 Andrés y Manso, a schools inspector and professor in the teachers’ training college, who also had a law degree, was a man renowned for his honesty and rectitude. That counted for nothing. He had edited Tierra y Trabajo, the newspaper of the FNTT in Salamanca. In the eyes of the rebels, he, like the Mayor, was a subversive and he too had to be killed.54
Both men had stayed in Salamanca believing that, since they had committed no crimes, they had nothing to fear. In fact, they were both arrested on 19 July 1936 and confined in the provincial prison. There were sixty-five inmates when they arrived and more than four hundred a week later.55 On 29 July, Carrasco Prieto and Andrés y Manso were pulled from prison by the local chief of the Falange, Francisco Bravo, accompanied by those who had come from Valladolid seeking revenge for the death of Onésimo Redondo. The bodies of the two men were found in a ditch twenty-three miles from Salamanca, at La Orbada on the road to Valladolid. It has frequently been alleged that they had been killed in the ritualized spectacle of a mock bullfight.56 The Protestant pastor, Atilano Coco, was shot on 9 December because, as with other pastors who were detained, tortured and shot, it was assumed that to be a Protestant was to support the Popular Front. On 10 September in San Fernando in Cádiz, another Protestant pastor, Miguel Blanco Ferrer, was shot for refusing Catholic baptism.57
The philosopher Miguel de Unamuno was furious with himself for having initially supported the military uprising. On 1 December 1936, he wrote to his friend Quintín de Torre about life in Salamanca: ‘It is a stupid regime of terror. Here people are shot without trial and without any justification whatsoever. Some because it is said that they are Freemasons, and I have no idea what that means any more than do the animals who cite it as a reason to kill. There is nothing worse than the marriage of the dementality [sic] of the barracks with that of the sacristy. To which is added the spiritual leprosy of Spain, the resentment, the envy, the hatred of intelligence.’58
Two w
eeks later, he wrote to him again: ‘How naive and irresponsible I was … You say that Salamanca is more tranquil because the Caudillo is here. Tranquil? No way. Here there is no battlefield shooting or taking of prisoners, but instead the most bestial persecution and unjustified murders. Regarding the Caudillo – I suppose you mean poor General Franco – he controls none of this repression, this savage rearguard terror. He just lets it happen. The rearguard repression is in the hands of that monster of perversion, poisonous and rancorous, General Mola.’ He went on with disgust: ‘Obviously, the dogs, and among them some hyenas, of this rabble, have no idea what Freemasonry nor anything else is. They imprison and they impose fines, which is just another name for theft, and even confiscate property and say they judge then execute. They also shoot without any trial.’59 He singled out Father Tusquets as one of those who had done most to justify the violence.60
Throughout the province, leftists were denounced by their neighbours and hunted down by Falangists. One of the most notorious groups was led by the belligerent landowner and retired army officer Diego Martín Veloz, who had a substantial arsenal in his house.61 Martín Veloz threw himself tirelessly into the uprising. He was one of the civilians most trusted by the military. Indeed, when he walked the streets or appeared in the Gran Hotel, he was saluted by officers. In the first days of the war, it appears that he briefly joined the column of troops which advanced into Ávila under the leadership of Major Lisardo Doval.62
Martín Veloz’s activities in Ávila were short lived and he was soon to be found back in Salamanca. He had been named President of the Provincial Assembly of Salamanca by his friend General Miguel Cabanellas, on 28 July 1936. Declaring that ‘he was not prepared to stay in the post because he had military duties to fulfil’, he resigned four days later to devote himself to leading a column of local members of the landowners’ party, the Bloque Agrario, of Acción Popular and of the Falange. They rampaged throughout the area east of Salamanca known as La Armuña, organizing recruits for the rebel forces and purging Republicans. Martín Veloz’s success in the former enterprise was no doubt linked to his ruthlessness in the latter. In an echo of what was happening in the latifundio areas of Andalusia and Extremadura, he led groups of Falangists, some of them very recent converts, in a vicious campaign of repression in La Armuña. In villages like El Pedroso, La Orbada, Cantalpino and Villoria, where there had been no notable incidents of violence before the military coup, men were shot and women raped. After having their heads shaved, the widows and sisters of those shot were made to parade through the streets of their villages.63
