The Spanish Civil War (73 page)

It would be wrong, however, to conclude that Negrín was a mere instrument of Russian policy. Few politicians have successfully used a communist party, and not been later swallowed by it. But in the 1930s and in Spain, the possibility did not seem so far-fetched. Negrín’s per
sonal self-confidence and his ebullient but secretive nature led him to think that he could slough off the communist connection when it was necessary. When, from the early summer of 1938, he was seeking peace with the nationalists, he did not confide in the communists nor in anyone else. It would be foolish to suppose that so independent-minded an intellectual, with so bad a temper, could be subservient to anyone. While Largo was referred to by the Russians as ‘comrade’, Negrín insisted on being named ‘Señor Presidente’.
¹
Negrín had no close relations with the leaders of the Spanish communist party and he disliked La Pasionaria. Indeed, despite the eclipse of the anarchists, the communists increased their power less under Negrín than they had under Largo. Hernández wrote later that a time would have come when they would have had to ‘liquidate’ Negrín.
²
La Pasionaria later spoke of Negrín’s ‘dark thoughts’ and alleged that, so far from Negrín being a tool of the communists, they, the communists, were victims of his wrong judgement.
³

This war was a mortal struggle in which most Spaniards had lost close friends or relations in appalling circumstances. No quarter would be offered to the vanquished. Negrín’s main mistake was to have allowed his disdain for revolutionary folly to cause him to overlook communist repression of the revolutionaries. Negrín was here naïve; the communist-dominated SIM (Servicio de Investigación Militar), for instance, had private prisons, unearthed by the nationalists after their victory.
⁴
Negrín denied that these could have existed, and said that the reports were nationalist propaganda. Ten years later, he admitted that he had been wrong.
⁵
Negrín was, however, surrounded by the wrecks of the reputations of men like Azaña, the ‘strong man of the republic’, and ‘the Spanish Lenin’, Largo Caballero. The anarchists were crushed in spirit by the discovery of the realities of political life.
Negrín assumed heavy responsibilities when becoming Prime Minister. He made mistakes. But for the rest of the civil war, this energetic physiologist, with the disorderly private life, represented the spirit of the Spanish republic.
¹

Negrín’s cabinet owed much to Azaña in its composition. It included two socialists besides the prime minister—Prieto, who brought together the war, navy and air ministries, in a single ministry of national defence, and Prieto’s protégé, Zugazagoitia, the minister of the interior. Negrín kept the ministry of finance himself, and the communists, Hernández and Uribe, retained their ministries of education and agriculture. Azaña’s old friend, the ex–prime minister of July 1936, Giral, and Giner de los Ríos, republicans, became foreign minister and minister of communications and public works. The Basque Irujo became minister of justice and a Catalan, Jaime Ayguadé, brother of the ex-Catalan councillor, became minister of labour. Thus, no members of Largo Caballero’s wing of the socialist party were included in the government. Araquistain, Largo Caballero’s chief remaining supporter, even resigned from the Embassy in Paris. He was replaced by Ossorio y Gallardo, the ‘monarchist without a king’, civil governor of Barcelona in 1909, since 1936 ambassador in Brussels who, it was hoped, would as a Catholic please the French Right.
²
Álvarez del Vayo remained chief political commissar and Spanish representative at Geneva. He left the foreign ministry with irritation.
³
The ex-lieutenant of carabineers who
had been governor of San Sebastián in the early days of the war, the communist Colonel Antonio Ortega, succeeded Wenceslao Carrillo as director-general of security: a bad appointment. The communists also retained other critical positions in the police and Major Díaz Tendero returned as personnel chief in the army.

Negrín asked the anarchists to join the cabinet but they refused, saying that they had not provoked the crisis, which they considered ‘unwise, inopportune, and harmful to the conduct of the war’. To join Negrín, they said, would prove a ‘lack of nobility’. On 27 May, their four ex-ministers gave addresses denouncing communist and Left republican opposition to the revolutionary changes in society which they had advocated. Their rank and file heard in detail of the quarrels of Juan Peiró with Negrín over the state seizure of the salt mines of Sallent, of López’s frustrations at the ministry of commerce, and of Federica Montseny’s honest doubts about the anarchist role in government.
¹
Thereafter, the CNT and FAI continued to collaborate with the government, but no longer exercised responsibility. They withdrew from neither the army nor the ranks of the bureaucracy. Their leaders realized that only Franco would profit from such action; and, after the May Days in Barcelona, this lesson was borne in on even the anarchist youth, even on the comrades of those killed in the fighting in May. Many anarchists continued to suppose that their day would come after the victory, when their numbers might be expected to tell. There was, in consequence, a loss of vitality on their part, and certain members (including the secretary-general, Mariano Vázquez) became regarded as supporters of Negrín.
²
Anarchist strength was far too great for there to be any question of their total ‘liquidation’, as there might be with the POUM: the movement had claimed over two million members in April 1937.
³

The anarchists’ loss of power continued in the early summer. The Barcelona control patrols were dissolved on 7 June. Other changes in the Barcelona police handed over effective command to proved non-anarchists—the pro-communist Colonel Ricardo Burrillo becoming director-general of security in Catalonia. General Pozas took over the
Catalan army; he seems to have actually joined the communists (PSUC). The FAI lost their posts on the popular tribunals, on 25 May, on the ground that, unlike the CNT, they were not a legally constituted body and, therefore, could not be represented in the institutions of the republic. All CNT-FAI committees in Catalonia by now were replaced by municipal councils. In June, the anarchists, of their own accord, dropped out of the
Generalidad,
after a series of political intrigues which repelled them. The still agile Companys (and the PSUC) had determined to introduce the learned rector of the university, Dr Pedro Bosch Gimpera, a brilliant anthropologist, of Acción Catalana, to the new government: but the anarchists disliked this extension of ‘Catalanism’. Also they now believed that all real authority in republican Spain rested with Negrín. They were right in that, and there was no Catalan councillor for defence, after the nomination of Pozas as captain-general of Catalonia. Catalan police, even Catalan firemen, were transferred elsewhere in Spain.
¹

Meantime, the ex-president of the council, Largo Caballero, whose fall had been so swift as to be hardly believable, returned to the secretariat of the UGT, where he was to be safe a few more months, surrounded by those who, as he believed, were ‘clean, pure members of society, members of my own class—people who might make mistakes, but who act in good faith’.
²

The government of Largo Caballero between September 1936 and May 1937 had successfully incorporated the revolution within the boundaries of the state. When Largo Caballero took office, the orders of the central government could often do no more than endorse
faits accomplis
by radical forces. When he left, orders from Valencia were customarily fulfilled. In order to achieve this victory for state power,
Largo had welcomed the communist party as an executive organization. A year previously, he could have accepted this. But the realities of political power, the evolution of the communist party itself, and the value which he placed upon his own independence, caused him to repudiate the communists. He could, as he knew, have led a united socialist-communist party. He was unwilling to merge his own party with the communists, and, thereafter, they abandoned him. Thus, in his last hours as Prime Minister, his only supporters, by a paradox, were the anarchists against whom he had fought all his life and whose influence he had systematically reduced during the previous eight months. Equally paradoxically, the forces ranged against Largo were the moderate socialists and the communists, as one in their desire to restrict the further progress of the revolution. A year previously, the same executive of the socialist party which now opposed Largo Caballero—headed by González Peña and Lamoneda—had tried to manoeuvre the supporters of Largo out of control of the party precisely because they feared him, and them, to be too close to the communists. This change can only be understood if it is recalled that for Prieto, as well as for the communists and for Azaña, the chief disturbing factor within the republican camp remained the anarchists, with their surviving cantonalist suspicion of the very idea of the state.

Largo Caballero, despite his obstinacy, vanity, and lack of imagination, was a man of integrity, simplicity and courage who was easily tricked by the communists, who were skilful at public relations. Largo’s dignified departure from the prime ministership marked the end of a whole era in Spanish politics; in terms of efficiency, the change from the plasterer to the professor of physiology could only be for the best. But Negrín could never be so popular in the Spanish working class as Largo Caballero had been.

The new republican state over which Dr Negrín presided was a far more formidable one than that which Largo Caballero had inherited from Giral. It had powerful armies: Miaja, with five army corps, in the Army of the Centre; Colonel Morales Carrasco, a regular colonel of engineers, in command of an Army of the South; General Pozas, commanding the Army of the East (including Catalonia and Aragon); and the embattled Army of the North, under General Llano de la Encomienda. The majority of commands in the field were held by ex-regular officers, though some of these, as has been seen, were now politically minded—mostly, like Colonel Cordón (chief of staff to Pozas) or Major Ciutat (chief of staff to Llano de la Encomienda), communist; but there were some who were anarchist in outlook, such as Major Perea, commander of the 4th Army Corps. The most prominent commanders who had not been in the army before 1936 were the communist militia leader, Modesto, in command of the 5th Army Corps, and some of the divisional commanders (such as Lister, Ortiz, Sanz, Trueba, Mera, Jover, and Rovira). Several International Brigade commanders were also to be found in control of divisions (Hans Kahle, ‘Walter’ and ‘Gal’). Thanks to Russia, the equipment was almost adequate; thus the Army of the Centre had some 100,000 rifles for its 180,000 men. There were altogether 450 batteries, with 1,680 cannon
in all. The trouble was that the pieces of artillery were various, little of it reached far, and heavy artillery was scarce. Many still had to use a great diversity of charges: for example, the reliable old 77-millimetre Krupp field gun had to use twenty-two different sorts of projectile. Nevertheless, the republic did have a formidable tank force now led by the Russian General ‘Rudolf’. It had about 125 T-26 tanks and over 100 armoured cars.

Opposed to this, the nationalist army, with German and Italian artillery, was probably gun for gun superior to that possessed by the republic, and their tanks, though less formidable, were better organized and used with greater imagination.

In the air force, the republic probably had technical and numerical superiority, but the first would not last much longer, and neither was true of the northern front. The republicans had 450 aircraft, commanded by Hidalgo de Cisneros; 200 were fighters (150 Russian) and 100 bombers (60 Russian). Fighters in the central zone were still led by a Russian (Colonel ‘José’), while most of the squadrons of Chatos, and all those of the Moscas, were flown by Russians. But, from May 1937, Spanish pilots trained in Russia were taking the Russians’ place.
¹
Other aircraft still included some of the Blochs, Dewoitines, and Nieuports from France of the early days of the war (though the republic had lost 150 aircraft since July 1936) and there were also a few Bristol Bulldogs bought in England, as well as some Letovs and others obtained in France.

In comparison, the nationalists had a little less than 400 aircraft: about 150 had Spanish pilots; 100 German, in the Condor Legion; and about 120 Italian, in their ‘legionary air force’. The Fiat CR-32 was still the characteristic fighter of both the Italian and Spanish services. New aircraft, however, from both Germany and Italy, in particular the Savoia 79 bomber, from Italy, the Heinkel 111 bomber, and above all the famous Messerschmitt 109, came, in the summer of 1937, to dominate their Russian opponents, being faster, lighter, and having greater firepower. The Messerschmitt, for example, had a top speed of over 350 miles an hour, a high rate of climb, bullet-proof fuel tanks, and a theoretical range of 400 miles—a considerable im
provement over the Russian aircraft which had served so well during the winter of 1936–7 (even if the range was in practice of less than 400 miles).
¹

This nationalist technical superiority was also evident in naval matters. The republic had abandoned any attempt to intervene in the Straits of Gilbralter. Though their fleet was still larger than that of their enemies, their lack of officers kept the ships in harbour. Several submarines had been lost, and the north coast was effectively blockaded. Azaña realized that: ‘No war can be won in the Peninsula if one does not dominate the sea, particularly if the French frontier is closed or hostile.’
²
The overall command of the republican navy soon passed to Captain Luis González Ubieta, in place of Admiral Buiza but, save for one fortunate encounter in 1938, the new commander was no better than the last one: Prieto’s
éminence grise
in the admiralty, Lieutenant Merín, kept his cautious hand over the fleet.

Prieto did, however, suppress Largo Caballero’s Supreme War Council, confirm the able Colonel Rojo as overall chief of staff, and create four sub-secretaries of defence (Fernández Bolanos, Benjamín Balboa, Camacho, and Pastor) in respect of the army, navy, air force and armaments, none of whom were communists.
³
Prieto’s design, largely achieved, of balancing communists with republicans or anti-communist socialists did not, however, have always the results for which he hoped. For example, the appointment of Colonel Visiedo as head of fighter operations ‘balanced’ the communist Colonel Hidalgo de Cisneros, chief of the air force; but Visiedo seems to have been one of those ‘geographically loyal’ only to the republic and, in consequence, very cautious.
⁴

Negrín’s government included five men (Prieto, Zugazagoitia, Irujo,
Uribe, and Hernández) from the Basque provinces.
¹
There the front was continuing to crumble. On 18 May, the priest of Amorebieta, Father San Román Ituricastillo, crossed the lines on a private mission of conciliation: a risky thing to do, at the best of times. The nationalists shot him, and announced that he had been killed by the ‘reds’.
²
The Basques were now almost back to the ‘ring of iron’. The bombing continued, the Condor Legion experimenting now with the idea of dropping incendiary bombs on woods to force the Basques to leave their positions. The assumption by Aguirre of the command of the Basque army corps in the field confused matters further with General Llano de la Encomienda. Aguirre wrote to Prieto that the latter was the ‘personification of incompetence’, incapable of understanding the Basques and excessively influenced by the communists, notably his chief of staff, Major Ciutat, an able officer, but anti-Basque.
³

Aircraft sent from Valencia via France to help the Basques were meantime held up at Toulouse by Colonel Lunn of the Non-Intervention Patrol Commission. (The republic expected that friends in Air France would have refuelled the aircraft and sent them on their way.) They were then returned to Valencia, with their machine-guns confiscated. Eventually, on 22 May, the risk was taken of sending fighters across nationalist Spain to Bilbao. Seven arrived safely and, in the next few weeks, some fifty aircraft were sent from the republic to the north; forty-five arrived—some Moscas, Chatos and some Natasha bombers.
⁴
In addition, the British agreed to join the French in escorting Basque refugee ships (including British merchant ships), once they were outside the Spanish three-mile limit. The first refugees to be evacuated were children, to be divided among those who agreed to look after them. The CGT in France agreed to take 2,300, while Russia undertook the care of communist children. A Basque children’s relief committee in England, supported by the Roman Catholic church, accepted 4,000 children. These, after being carefully examined by doctors from the ministry of health, were boarded at a camp in Stoneham in Hampshire. The authorities in Burgos protested, believing that these steps implied that the Basques were preparing to destroy Bilbao.
But the evacuation of ‘our brave expeditionary infants’, as the Bilbao press described those who went away, continued without difficulty.
¹

Perhaps in the knowledge of the difficulties between the Basques and the republican government in Valencia, several new unofficial proposals were now made to the Basque government for a separate peace. Such ideas had been unofficially put forward throughout the winter. The most important new plan derived from the Argentinian ambassador to Spain, then established, with the rest of the diplomatic corps, at St Jean de Luz. He suggested to the Pope that he should try to arrange a separate peace. As a result, Cardinal Pacelli, secretary of state, about 12 May, sent a conciliatory telegram to Aguirre, suggesting terms for peace in the northern provinces. Unfortunately, the telegram was dispatched
en clair.
The post office in Paris, seeing a communication for Spain, sent it to Valencia, where it fell into the hands of the republican government. Largo Caballero did not raise the question in the cabinet. Instead, he sent a bitter telegram denouncing the Basques for seeking a separate peace. The Basque government, not knowing of the misdirection in Paris, concluded that the affair was a manoeuvre of the communists to discredit them. The Basque minister of justice, Leizaola, therefore, sent a telegram couched in such strong terms that Prieto, reading it, thought that it demanded that he should be shot.
²
In this state of misunderstanding, the relations between the Basque and republican governments remained throughout the rest of the war. Meantime the Pope also approached Cardinal Gomá in the same sense as he had approached Aguirre. Gomá went to Mola and
Mola telephoned Franco and limited guarantees were indeed offered to the Basques by the nationalists. But nothing came of this.

The dealings between the Basques, Cardinal Gomá, the Pope and Mussolini were not the only efforts being made to end at least part of the slaughter in Spain. For Anthony Eden had been visited in London by the socialist reformist Besteiro, who had represented the republic at the coronation on 12 May of King George VI. Besteiro came to Eden on behalf of the melancholy Azaña, begging the British Foreign Secretary to mediate. Azaña had suggested that, after a withdrawal of foreign volunteers, the great powers should then impose a settlement on Spain.
¹
The idea was one with which Eden had himself toyed. The new British chargé at Valencia, John Leche, reported, however, that the hatred in Spain was such that mediation would not now prosper.
²
Eden persevered. The British ambassadors at Rome, Berlin, Paris and Moscow, and the minister at Lisbon, approached the foreign ministers in those capitals in the sense that Azaña had suggested.
³
On 19 May, Bastiniani, Ciano’s second-in-command at the Palazzo Chigi, angrily complained to the German ambassador von Hassell that Eden’s plan was typical of ‘the British desire to prevent a fascist victory at all costs’.
⁴
Franco told Faupel that an armistice and free elections would mean a ‘leftist government’ and mark the end of White Spain. He ‘and all nationalist Spaniards would rather die than place Spain in the hands of a red or a democratic government’. Serrano Súñer also believed that a compromise of any sort would ‘leave open the door to a return to that state of affairs which had made war inevitable’.
⁵
The Generalissimo added that he could well believe therefore that the republic might accept mediation. The British, said Franco, wanted an armistice, since they had lent large sums to the Basques.
⁶
Franco and Faupel agreed how much trouble was caused by the Vatican. In consequence, Franco had insisted to Cardinal Gomá, the archbishop of Toledo, that no mention
should be made in Spain of the recent encyclical,
Mit brennender Sorge,
delivered against Nazi Germany, and read in German churches in March.
¹
Geoffrey Dawson, editor of
The Times
in London, was, meanwhile, anxiously wondering how he could calm Germany’s feelings over his paper’s reporting of Guernica: ‘No doubt they [the Germans] were annoyed over Steer’s first story of the bombing of Guernica, but its essential accuracy has never been disputed and there has not been any attempt here to rub it in … I did my utmost, night after night, to keep out of the paper anything that might have hurt their susceptibilities.’
²
On 24 May, Ciano told the American ambassador that Eden’s armistice plan was unfair, since Franco was about to enter Bilbao.
³

Eden arrived in Geneva for the League of Nations Council and the British delegation which he led there openly confessed that the mediation plan had failed.
⁴
Indeed, nothing more was heard of it. On the 28th, the League Council considered a Spanish complaint about Italian intervention. Alvarez del Vayo spoke eloquently. He doubted whether non-intervention control would prevent the influx of material and agreed to the withdrawal of volunteers. Litvinov supported him. Delbos and Eden proclaimed their ‘fervent belief’ that they had made progress since the previous December, when the Council had last considered Spain. Their policy both at the conference table and in the corridors was, as ever, to keep the discussion in a low key so as not to drive the Germans or Italy from impatience out of the Non-Intervention Committee.

In that body in London, Grandi was meantime raising a new incident, that of the Italian cruiser
Barletta.
This vessel, part of the Italian contribution to the non-intervention patrol control, had been sheltering in Palma, in Majorca. It could not have been carrying out its patrol duties there, since Majorca was a French responsibility. Nor could its presence in Palma have been innocent. During a republican air raid, on 24 May, on the island, the
Barletta
was hit. Six Italians were killed. The Non-Intervention Committee suggested a safety zone might be found for all naval patrol vessels in Palma.
⁵
The next day, the League
Council formally regretted that its resolution of December had not been carried out, welcomed the control plan, urged the withdrawal of volunteers, condemned the bombing of open towns, and approved such humanitarian acts as Britain and France had undertaken in respect of the Basque children. These pious sentiments were doomed to remain as aspirations. For the same day a new naval incident occurred in the Balearics.

24. Naval Non-Intervention Patrol