The Spanish Civil War (96 page)

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 friends 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 de
fence 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 Torre
jón. 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 Ciudad 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.

The junior emissaries named for negotiation by the republic were Colonels Garijo and Leopoldo Ortega, both of whom had been on the staff of the Army of the Centre for most of the war. Garijo was, as has been noted, a Fifth Columnist These two officers left for Burgos by air in the morning of 23 March, accompanied by Centaño and two other members of Franco’s intelligence service. The conditions which they brought with them were not even discussed by Colonels Gonzalo and Ungría, their nationalist co-negotiators, who merely handed them a document for transmittal to Casado. The nationalists’ document provided for the flight of the republican air force to nationalist aerodromes on 25 March. As for the army, there would have to be a cease-fire on all fronts, on 27 March. Commanding officers, with white flags, were to come to the nationalist lines, with documents describing
the position of their forces. In addition, Franco named two ports on the Levante for their expatriation of those who wished to flee. He did not mind if British ships transported these refugees, and would put no difficulties in the way of the departure of these ships. But there was to be no pact, no signature of any document naming the concessions.

The council of defence, Garijo then said, was not interested in saving criminals, but he wanted to know if the concept of crime in the nationalist mind corresponded to legislation before 18 July, if responsibility was to be considered collectively, if the benevolence which would affect officers who surrendered would also affect civilians, and if the safe conduct to those who wanted to leave could be assured. How many might want to leave? Perhaps 4,000, said Garijo; 10,000, thought Ortega.
¹
On 25 March, after anguished discussions in the council of defence, Garijo and Ortega returned to Burgos, to demand that the terms should be put in writing and that a delay of twenty-five days should be granted for the expatriation of those who wished to leave. The latter point was refused but the former was accepted. Garijo began to draw up such a document. There were some other points at issue. At six o’clock, however, Colonel Gonzalo bluntly announced that negotiations were considered broken off because the republican air force had not surrendered. Garijo and Ortega flew back to Madrid. The air force was, of course, important, if only because, by its offices, people could escape: on 25 March itself six aircraft flew from central Spain, carrying to France officials and others who feared reprisals.
²