Читать книгу Franco - Paul Preston - Страница 13

IRONICALLY, Franco had hoped, by the day on which the disagreeable incident between Millán and Unamuno had taken place, to have been celebrating the capture of Madrid. There had been a significant slowing down of the rhythm of operations during the two weeks in which he was otherwise occupied clinching his elevation to power. The war could not be delayed indefinitely and, on 6 October, Franco announced to journalists that his offensive against the capital was about to begin. Under the overall direction of Mola, the Nationalist forces began a co-ordinated push against Madrid on the following day. An extremely tired Army of Africa resumed its northward march under the command of General Varela, assisted by Colonel Yagüe as his second-in-command.¹ The ten thousand-strong force was organized in five columns under Asensio, Barrón, Castejón, Colonel Francisco Delgado Serrano and Tella. Supplies of arms had been collected and they were augmented by the arrival of substantial quantities of Italian artillery and light tanks. Italian instructors quickly trained Spaniards in their use and, on 18 October, Franco, accompanied by the Italian military mission, was able to inspect the first Italo-Spanish motorised armoured units.²

After frequent consultations with Franco, Mola developed a two-part final strategy to take Madrid which was already surrounded on the west from due north to due south. The idea was first for the Nationalist forces to march on Madrid, simultaneously reducing the length of the front and tightening their grip on the capital, and then for Varela’s Army of Africa to make a frontal assault through the northern suburbs. The push which began on 7 October saw an advance from Navalperal in the north, near El Escorial, Cebreros to the west and Toledo in the south. The forward defences of the city were demoralised by Nationalist bombing and then brushed aside by motorised columns armed with fast Italian whippet tanks. Desperate counter-attacks from the capital were easily repelled, thereby intensifying the optimism of the attacking forces.³

However, a different kind of war was about to begin. From 18 July until 7 October, the brunt of the Nationalist effort had been borne by the Army of Africa, on a forced march, frontally attacking towns and villages and opposed only by untrained amateur militiamen. It was little different from the kind of colonial war in which Franco and the other Africanistas had received their early military experiences. In this type of warfare, the advantage was entirely with the Legion and the Regulares. Henceforth, there was to be a move towards a war of fronts. Paradoxically, as the Germans, Italians and Russians poured in material assistance in the form of the latest weaponry, in part at least by way of experiment for the next war, Franco would remain fixed in the strategic world of the Great War.

More than with the attack on Madrid, the Generalísimo was occupied with the operation to break the siege of Oviedo and the city’s liberation on 17 October gave him enormous pleasure. He seems to have taken less direct interest in the campaign for Madrid. It was not until 20 October, considerably after the diversion of the Army of Africa to Toledo, that he seemed to wake up to the extent to which the capital was being strengthened and issued the order to ‘concentrate maximum attention and available combat forces on the fronts around Madrid’.⁴ Indeed, his absence from the operations to take Madrid, and from the subsequent Nationalist chronicles thereof, was quite remarkable. Perhaps Franco suspected that there was little easy glory to be won and thus slyly left Mola to take responsibility.

Mola himself was happy to seize the opportunity to make good his failure to capture Madrid at the beginning of the war.⁵ His optimism was widely shared: a Nationalist alcalde (mayor) and city councillors had already been named.⁶ Nationalist radio stations broadcast the news that Mola was preparing to enter the Puerta del Sol in the centre of Madrid on a white horse. He even offered to meet the Daily Express correspondent there for a coffee and Republican wags set up a table to await him.⁷ Nationalist aircraft showered Madrid with leaflets containing an ultimatum for the evacuation of the civilian population and total surrender. The situation was deteriorating so rapidly that there seemed little hope.⁸ Then on 15 October, the first arms and equipment from the Soviet Union began to be unloaded at Cartagena. Once the fifty tanks, twenty armoured cars and 108 fighter aircraft were assembled and transported to the Madrid front, giving the Republic a brief parity of force, there would be no quick victory for the Nationalists.⁹

By the end of the month, Mola’s forces had taken a ring of small towns and villages near the capital, including Brunete, Móstoles, Fuenlabrada, Villaviciosa de Odón, Alcorcón and Getafe. Madrid was inundated with refugees from the surrounding villages along with their sheep and other farm animals.¹⁰ There were major problems of food and water distribution. Harassed by Nationalist aircraft, the militia columns were also falling back along the roads to Madrid in considerable disarray. On 31 October, with twenty-five thousand Nationalist troops under Varela about to reach the western and southern suburbs of Madrid, Mola issued a warning about the dangers of further delay.¹¹

However, from 1 to 6 November, there was a serious slowing-down of the advance, usually attributed to the Nationalists’ need to rest their troops and their confidence that they had time to do so. However, it has been alleged that the hesitation was in part caused by Franco making long consultations with his German and Italian advisers.¹² It would also appear that between 4 and 6 November, an acrimonious debate took place within the Nationalist camp as to how to go about seizing the capital. Yagüe and Varela proposed daring blitzkrieg attacks through the suburbs, while Mola called for a broad frontal assault in the belief that Madrid would offer no more resistance than Toledo.^* A cautious Franco rejected the plans of Yagüe and Varela for fear of losing the crack African columns.¹³

Franco thus left Mola free to push his own over-optimistic strategy of a full-scale assault from the west across the River Manzanares and through the University City and the Casa del Campo, the old royal hunting ground of sparsely wooded scrub. By 7 November, the Nationalists were ready to begin what they assumed would be their final frontal assault.¹⁴ On 28 October, the Falange and the Carlists drew up lists of the buildings, hotels, cinemas, theatres, radio stations and newspapers that they planned to occupy after the victory.¹⁵ Civilian rightists who followed in the wake of the Army of Africa had packed their suitcases in anticipation of an early return to their homes in Madrid’s better neighbourhoods. It was believed in the Francoist camp that, within hours, Legionarios would be in the Puerta del Sol.¹⁶

However, the news of the arrival of Russian weaponry and technicians along with the first 1,900 men of the International Brigades diminished the optimism at the Generalísimo’s headquarters. Heavy Russian tanks were put into action from the end of October to blunt the advance of the fast-moving Nationalist columns, although the lack of skilled drivers and gunners dramatically diminished their efficacy. Soviet I-15 and I-16 fighter aircraft piloted by Russian airmen went into action for the first time on 4 November and would, for about six months at least, reverse the easy air superiority enjoyed by the Nationalists during the drive on Madrid.¹⁷ Without knowing fully the scale of the Russian aid to the Republic, the Germans were already becoming frustrated with the slowness of Franco’s progress towards Madrid.

The German Foreign Minister Constantin von Neurath complained to Ciano on 21 October about Franco’s inactivity on the Madrid front.¹⁸ Shared concern about the fate of the Nationalist cause was one of the many factors pushing Italy and Germany together. Indeed, Mussolini was soon to start talking of the Rome-Berlin Axis. Both Ciano and von Neurath expected Madrid to fall by the end of the month or in the first week of November at which point they planned to extend formal recognition to Franco.¹⁹ At the end of October, however, the German Minister of War, General von Blomberg, sent Admiral Canaris and General Hugo Sperrle to Salamanca to investigate the reasons for Franco’s failure to take Madrid. Von Blomberg had instructed both Canaris and Sperrle to inform Franco ‘most emphatically’ that the German government did not consider his ground and air combat tactics ‘promising of success’ and that ‘continued adherence to this hesitant and routine procedure (failure to exploit the present favourable ground and air situation, scattered employment of the Air Force) is even endangering what has been gained so far.’

Canaris and Sperrle were to inform Franco of the conditions under which he would receive future reinforcements. The German units would be under the command of a German officer, who would be Franco’s sole adviser on their use and responsible only to him. Franco’s command would be maintained only ‘outwardly’. The consolidation of German forces was conditional on the ‘more systematic and active conduct of the war’ and the Generalísimo’s acceptance of these demands ‘without reservation’.²⁰ Once the Generalísimo had agreed, a complete battle group under General Sperrle, known as the Condor Legion, was assembled and despatched with astonishing speed. Within a matter of days, a force of specialised units, equipped with the latest developments in German bomber and fighter aircraft and tanks and other motorised weapons was en route to Seville. Five thousand Germans landed in Cádiz on 16 November and a further seven thousand on 26 November along with artillery, aircraft and armoured transport.²¹

So sure was the Republican government that Madrid would fall that, after acrimonious discussions, it left for Valencia on 6 November. With Nationalist artillery shells falling on the suburbs, it seemed to be the beginning of the end.²² The organization of the city’s defence was placed in the hands of a Defence Junta presided over by the recently appointed Captain-General of New Castile, José Miaja.²³ The portly, balding fifty-eight year-old Miaja was despised by Franco as incompetent and scruffy and regarded by Queipo de Llano as inept, stupid and cowardly.²⁴ Known largely for the abortive counter-attacks which had failed to stop Franco’s advance through Extremadura, Miaja was assumed by many, including himself, to have been chosen as the scapegoat to take the blame for the fall of the capital.²⁵

The bluff and good-humoured Miaja quickly surrounded himself with a staff of highly competent assistants, of whom the most outstanding was to be his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-Colonel Vicente Rojo. While Rojo planned the defence, Miaja worked on raising the morale of the defenders. Unaware that Miaja was anything more than a sacrificial victim, Franco announced on 7 November that he would attend mass in Madrid on the next day. On the morning of 8 November, congratulatory telegrams to Generalísimo Franco from the governments of Austria and Guatemala were delivered at the Ministry of War in the capital.²⁶ Lisbon Radio also jumped the gun by describing in detail the frenetic welcome that he received from the people of Madrid. The American Hearst Press’s sensationalist correspondent, H.R. Knickerbocker, wrote a detailed description of the victory parade, ‘from the steps of the Telefónica’, which even included the customary barking dog following behind.²⁷ The British journalist Henry Buckley was told by a news editor in London that his story of fighting in the outskirts must be wrong because it was known that Franco’s forces were in the centre of the city.²⁸

Miaja and Rojo faced a frightening situation. They had little or no idea of the scale, disposition or readiness of the forces at their disposal. There was a shortage of rifles and ammunition, no anti-aircraft cover and little or no radio liaison between the random collection of arbitrarily armed irregulars whose only asset was their determination to defend the city to the death. Miaja and Rojo were fully aware of the skill and aggression of the Legionarios and Regulares about to hit them. They also knew of the numerous and well-organized fifth column of Nationalist supporters carrying out sabotage and ready to rise in the city.²⁹

Varela, understandably confident that Madrid would fall easily in the light of the government’s desertion, delayed in launching the attack in order to allow his troops to rest. He had faced virtually no resistance on 5 November. Had he attacked on 6 November when demoralization still gripped the population, he might have had an easy victory.³⁰ As it was, Rojo and Miaja were able to spend the night of 6 November and the entire day and night of the seventh organizing the disparate forces at their disposal. Rojo was blessed even more by the fact that on the night of 7 November Varela’s detailed battle plan was found in a captured Nationalist tank.³¹ Curiously, the departure of the indecisive government of Largo Caballero seemed to take with it the blanket of pessimism and the proximity of Franco’s forces wiped away internecine political squabbles.³²

In the silent streets of the capital on the night of 7 November, the defenders were united by tormenting thoughts of what had happened after the Army of Africa had entered Badajoz and Toledo. Nevertheless, there was a popular determination to fight to the last.³³ Along with the Communist Party’s Fifth Regiment, the most highly organised and disciplined force in the central zone, the 1,900 men of the Eleventh International Brigade helped Miaja to lead the entire population of Madrid in a desperate and remarkable defence. Inspired by Miaja’s jocular bluster and guided by Rojo’s brilliant use of Varela’s battle plan, the ordinary citizens of Madrid, with aged rifles and insufficient cartridges, dressed only in their civilian clothes, halted the Nationalist forces.³⁴ In the course of the attack – launched in brilliant autumn sunshine on 8 November – the Army of Africa suffered casualties on a scale hitherto unknown as it battled to cross the Manzanares, which is dominated from above by the terrace-like avenue known as the Paseo de Rosales. Major Antonio Castejón, the most fiercely energetic of Franco’s column commanders, was seriously wounded. With his hip shattered, Castejón, depressed by the high casualties among his Moors, told the American journalist John Whitaker, ‘We made this revolt and now we are beaten.’³⁵

Varela’s attack through the Casa de Campo had faltered by 10 November at the cost of the lives of one third of the men of the International Brigades. When the Manzanares was finally crossed on 15 November, there was hand-to-hand fighting between them and the Moors in the University buildings.³⁶ Defending their city, with their backs to its walls, the working-class militia were much more of a match for the Moors than they had been in open scrub land. However, after the arrival on 12 November of the Condor Legion, working-class districts were shelled and bombed more systematically than before, although the Generalísimo was careful to try to spare the plush Barrio de Salamanca, the residential district where many of his fifth columnists lived and other important rightists with his forces had their homes. The Germans were anxious to experiment with terror bombing. The damage was massive, the military impact negligible.³⁷ In deciding to try to terrorize Madrid into submission, and permitting the incendiary bombing of a city bulging with Spain’s art treasures, Franco had cast aside the pretence that he was not prepared to damage the capital. He had told Portuguese journalists that he would destroy Madrid rather than leave it to the Marxists.³⁸ The American Ambassador wrote to Washington: ‘it is currently reported that the former King, Alfonso, has protested against this policy to Franco. If he is responsible it can only come from the fact that in his humiliation over his failure to take Madrid in a few days, he has permitted his resentment to get the better of his judgement.’³⁹

By 22 November, the Nationalist attack was repulsed.⁴⁰ On the following day, Franco and his Chief of Staff, Colonel Martín Moreno, travelled from Salamanca to Leganés on the outskirts of Madrid. The Generalísimo addressed a meeting of Mola, Saliquet, Varela and their respective general staffs. Without massive reinforcements which he simply did not have, there was no choice but to abandon the attack. The Generalísimo ordered an end to frontal assaults on the grounds of the weakness of his forces, the foreign assistance received by the Republic and the difficult tactical situation of the Nationalist Army, given its reliance on long exposed lines of supply and communication.⁴¹ Orgaz would take over the forces on the Madrid front, Mola those in the north. Franco’s forces had suffered their first major reverse.⁴² However, instead of taking the militarily sensible decision of withdrawing to easily defended lines four or five kilometres from the city, Franco revealed his obstinate determination never to give up an inch of conquered ground. He thus ordered Asensio to fortify the positions taken in the University City in order, as he perceived it, to maintain a psychological and moral advantage, irrespective of the cost which, in the next three months, would be considerable.⁴³

Franco was immensely fortunate that the Republican forces in Madrid were too depleted to mount a serious counter-offensive. If they had, the tide might well have turned decisively in their favour. Totally disconcerted by the losses suffered by their men, Varela and Yagüe had told Captain Roland von Strunk, a German military observer in Spain, in the presence of John Whitaker, ‘We are finished. We cannot stand at any point if the Reds are capable of undertaking counter-attacks.’ Captain von Strunk was in total agreement, convinced that only German reinforcements could save Franco from defeat. He commented bitterly to the US Consul in Seville that ‘Franco could have captured Madrid on the first day’ and added that he had informed Franco that he must accept German direction of the campaign or else Germany would withdraw its material and Franco had accepted.⁴⁴ In Paris, in Rome, in Morocco, as well as in the Nationalist tents around Madrid, it was believed that if Franco did not get more help from Germany and Italy, his movement would collapse.⁴⁵

Before the Republic could test the new confidence forged in the flames of Madrid, Franco’s battered columns would receive massive reinforcements from Fascist Italy. It is ironic that only four days before Franco’s tacit acknowledgement – in his change of strategy – that he had been defeated, he had secured the co-ordinated recognition of Germany and Italy. In near-identical terms, Berlin and Rome justified their action on the grounds that Franco controlled ‘the greater part of Spanish territory’.⁴⁶ On 18 November in Salamanca, a visibly emotional Franco appeared before crowds wildly cheering for Hitler and Mussolini. He told them that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were ‘the bulwarks of culture, civilization and Christianity in Europe’.⁴⁷ On the same day, Hitler instructed the new German Chargé d’Affaires in Spain about his duties. The man selected was the retired General Wilhelm Faupel, one-time organizer of the Freikorps, adviser to the Argentinian and Peruvian Armies, and Director of the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut. A staunch Nazi, he was told not to interfere in military affairs.⁴⁸ Faupel presented his credentials to Franco on 30 November.⁴⁹

Franco’s delight with the signs of co-ordinated fascist help would no doubt have been tarnished had he known of the contempt with which the Italians viewed his military achievements. On 25 November, Mussolini told the German Ambassador to Rome, Ulrich von Hassell, that the Nationalists were lacking in offensive spirit and personal bravery. After negotiating with Franco the Italo-Spanish agreement on military and economic co-operation, Filippo Anfuso, Ciano’s representative, reported on 3 December that the Nationalists acted as if they were taking part in a colonial war, concerned with tiny tactical actions rather than with striking great strategic blows. He concluded that Franco needed Italian generals, an Italian column under the orders of Roatta and a sense of urgency.⁵⁰ It was only because Mussolini wanted a fascist Spain to put pressure on France and was hopeful that Franco could be coached in the ways of fascism that the Duce contemplated sending further aid to the Caudillo. But, like the Germans, he insisted on certain conditions. The most important was an undertaking ‘to conduct future Spanish policy in the Mediterranean in harmony with that of Italy’.⁵¹

That Franco, conventionally considered to be fiercely proud, should have been happy to accept German and Italian aid on humiliating conditions was not at all puzzling. In the first place, he was desperate. Moreover, he still felt a certain deference towards both Hitler and Mussolini. It was to be his good fortune that, as the American Ambassador in Berlin, William E. Dodd, observed, ‘having recognized Franco as conqueror when this has yet to be proved, Mussolini and Hitler must see to it that he is successful or be associated with a failure’.⁵² Italy was already racing down the slippery slope to total commitment. In a matter of four months, Mussolini had gone almost imperceptibly from his initial reluctant decision to supply twelve transport aircraft, via the shipping of substantial quantities of aircraft and armoured vehicles in August, September and October, to formal recognition. That gesture would soon involve Mussolini in an irrevocable commitment to Franco’s cause which was now facing possible defeat and needed massive assistance.

Faupel telegrammed the Wilhelmstrasse on 5 December with the stark message ‘We are now faced with the decision either to leave Spain to herself or to throw in additional forces.’ In the German Foreign Office, State-Secretary Weizsäcker feared that to comply would require sending a sea convoy which would attract the hostile attention of England. He believed that Italy should bear the brunt of helping Franco.⁵³ Immediately after signing his secret agreement with Franco on 28 November, Mussolini called a staff conference to examine the possibility of stepping up Italian military aid to Franco and asked Hitler to send a representative. On 6 December, the Duce, Ciano and Roatta met a pessimistic Admiral Canaris at the Palazzo Venezia. Mussolini suggested that Germany and Italy each prepare a division for Spain, that German and Italian instructors be sent to train Franco’s troops and that a joint Italo-German general staff direct and co-ordinate operations alongside Franco’s staff. Canaris agreed to co-ordination of the continued delivery of military aircraft and naval and submarine support for Franco in the Mediterranean but repeated the views of Hitler, of von Blomberg, of other senior Wehrmacht officers and of State-Secretary Weizsäcker that Germany could not be seen to send large numbers of troops to Franco without risking international repercussions which might undermine her rearmament plans. Nevertheless, Mussolini decided to go ahead with Italy’s commitment of substantial ground forces. It was also agreed that a joint Italo-German general staff be set up to galvanize Franco’s operations despite the fears of Canaris that Franco would narrow-mindedly resist.⁵⁴

It is clear from the minutes of this meeting on 6 December that Mussolini, in a spirit of disdain towards Franco, had decided to take the outcome of the Spanish Civil War into his own hands. Although, for obvious reasons, Franco was not informed about what had been said at the meeting, he could in general terms be confident that the Italians could now withdraw their support for him only with the greatest difficulty. On the following day, Mussolini wrote to General Roatta giving him command of all Italian land and air forces already in Spain and soon to be sent. The Duce instructed Roatta to liaise with Franco and the newly arrived German Chargé d’Affaires, General Faupel, over the creation of a joint headquarters staff. Two days after the 6 December conference, Mussolini set up a special office, the Ufficio Spagna, to co-ordinate the various ministerial contributions to Italian aid for Franco.^*55

The clinching of external assistance was paralleled inside Spain by the consolidation of the Generalísimo’s undisputed authority. Franco had already sabotaged what limited chances there had been of rescuing José Antonio Primo de Rivera. Now, in December 1936, the Generalísimo provided another stark illustration of the speed and skill with which he could act when he felt himself threatened. As the numbers of casualties suffered by the Moroccan Army grew, Franco had to reconcile himself to relying more and more on the recruitment of militia whose first loyalty was to a political group. Inevitably, that increased the political weight of the two parties which made the most substantial contribution, the Falange and the Carlist Comunión Tradicionalista. There was no immediate difficulty or doubt about their commitment to the Nationalist cause but, in the long run, their political ambitions differed considerably. Having gone to some trouble to start building his own absolute power, Franco was sensitive to potential threats both to the efficacy of the Nationalist war effort and to his own hegemony. The absence of José Antonio left the Falange disorientated. The veil of secrecy about his death maintained that situation. The Carlists were then, in the short term, more of a threat to Franco’s hegemony within the Nationalist zone. The President of their National War Junta, Manuel Fal Conde, had been asserting the autonomy of Carlism since late October.⁵⁶ The Carlists saw a chance to make a more overt bid to consolidate their independence within the Nationalist camp when a decision was announced giving regular army rank to militia officers, and creating short-term training courses to turn them into alféreces provisionales (provisional second lieutenants).

On 8 December, with the permission of Mola, they set up a separate Real Academia Militar de Requetés for the technical and ideological training of Carlist officers. They claimed that their purpose was no more than to ensure the replacement of casualties and those Requeté officers who had gone into the regular forces. The Falangists had two such academies, but had taken the precaution of securing Franco’s approval. The Generalísimo was quietly furious and took the opportunity to flex his muscles. After carefully consulting, cultivating and neutralizing Fal Conde’s more malleable rival, the languid Conde de Rodezno, Franco moved. Fal Conde was informed through General Dávila, the administrative head of the Junta Técnica del Estado, that Franco considered the establishment of a Carlist Academy to be tantamount to a coup d’état. Fal Conde was given forty-eight hours either to leave the Nationalist zone or else to face a court martial. Franco gave serious thought to executing the Carlist leader. As it was, since he was loath to risk undermining the morale of the Requetés fighting at the front, the Caudillo contented himself with his exile to Portugal.⁵⁷ To clinch his control over the autonomous militias, Franco issued a decree militarizing all three militia groups, those of the Falange, of the Carlists and of the CEDA, and placing them under the command of Colonel Monasterio.

By a curious coincidence, just as Franco was dealing with the threat to his authority posed by the Carlists, another hazard placed itself uninvited on his agenda. Don Juan de Borbón, the heir to the throne of Alfonso XIII, remained anxious to take part in the Nationalist war effort. He wrote to the Generalísimo on 7 December 1936, reminded him that he had served in the Royal Navy on HMS Enterprise and HMS Iron Duke and respectfully requested permission to join the crew of the battlecruiser Baleares which was then nearing completion. Although the young prince promised to remain inconspicuous, not go ashore at any Spanish port and to abstain from any political contacts, Franco was quick to perceive the dangers both immediate and distant.⁵⁸ If Don Juan were to fight on the Nationalist side, intentionally or otherwise, he would soon become a figurehead for the large numbers of Alfonsine monarchists, especially in the Army, who, for the moment, were content to leave Franco in charge while waiting for victory and an eventual restoration. There was the danger that the Alfonsists would become a distinct group alongside the Falangists and the Carlists, adding their voice to the political diversity which was beginning to come to the surface in the Nationalist zone. Having just been liberated from the problem of José Antonio Primo de Rivera and in the process of cutting down Fal Conde, Franco was hardly likely to welcome Don Juan de Borbón with open arms.

His response was a masterpiece of duplicity. He delayed some weeks before replying to Don Juan. ‘It would have given me great pleasure to accede to your request, so Spanish and so legitimate, to fight in our navy for the cause of Spain. However, the need to keep you safe would not permit you to live as a simple officer since the enthusiasm of some and the officiousness of others would stand in the way of such noble intentions. Moreover, we have to take into account the fact that the place which you occupy in the dynastic order and the obligations which arise from that impose upon us all, and demand of you, the sacrifice of desires which are as patriotic as they are noble and deeply felt, in the interests of the Patria … It is not possible for me to follow the dictates of my soldier’s heart and to accept your offer.’⁵⁹ Not only did he thus gracefully refuse a dangerous offer, and so dissipate the threat, but he also squeezed considerable political capital out of so doing. He let it be known ‘secretly’ among Falangists that he had prevented the heir to the throne from entering Spain because of his own commitment to the future Falangist revolution. He also gave publicity to what he had done and gave reasons which consolidated his own position among the monarchists. ‘My responsibilities are great and among them is the duty not to put his life in danger, since one day it may be precious to us … If one day a King returns to rule over the State, he will have to come as a peace-maker and should not be found among the victors.’⁶⁰ The cynicism of such sentiments could only be appreciated after nearly four decades had elapsed during which Franco had dedicated his efforts to institutionalizing the division of Spain into victors and vanquished and omitting to restore the monarchy.

For the moment, however, Don Juan was a minor problem compared with the military task facing the Generalísimo. At the end of November, Varela had launched an operation to relieve the Nationalist troops tied down to the north-west of Madrid in the Casa de Campo and the Ciudad Universitaria. Little was achieved and the casualties were enormous on both sides. A further effort was made on 15 and 16 December, also at the cost of heavy losses.⁶¹ Both sides had dug in to regroup, and for more than three weeks, the Madrid front saw only partial, albeit bitterly contested, actions. The daring and decisiveness with which Franco had confronted the problems of crossing the Straits and the first precipitate dash northwards of the African columns were now consigned to the past.

General Faupel was shocked when Franco boasted to him in early December ‘I will take Madrid; then all of Spain, including Catalonia, will fall into my hands more or less without a fight’. Faupel regarded this as a frivolous assessment since Franco was now faced with a complex war of manoeuvre. The retired German general concluded that Franco’s ‘military training and experience do not fit him for the direction of operations on their present scale’. In fact, despite the bravado of his words, Franco faced the task with a plodding, indeed hesitant, prudence. He also accepted with deference the overbearing advice of Faupel who, despite Hitler’s admonition to keep out of military affairs, was profligate with his opinions. The Generalísimo, who regarded himself as the most meticulous officer in the Spanish army, exercised iron self-control and swallowed Faupel’s peremptory and patronizing instruction to issue ‘sharp orders for the better care of equipment, rifles and machines guns in particular.’ He was playing for higher stakes and on 9 December asked Faupel ‘that one German and one Italian division be placed at his disposal as soon as possible’.⁶²

Subsequently the Caudillo claimed that he had requested German and Italian arms not troops.⁶³ However, that became true only much later in 1937 after a massive conscription and recruiting operation. In December 1936, with his armies exhausted and decimated at Madrid, he was desperate for reinforcements.^* The Generalísimo was immensely lucky that, within two weeks of the offensive against Madrid breaking down because of his own shortage of reliable troops, the Duce should have decided to send massive aid. On 9 December 1936, Franco received the formal offer of Italian help in the form of officers, NCOs, specialist tank crews, radio operators, artillerymen and engineers, to be incorporated into mixed brigades of Spanish and Italian troops. Rome offered uniforms, armaments and equipment for these brigades and asked Franco how many brigades could be organized. Franco was delighted and arrangements for the creation of two such mixed brigades were made in mid-December. The necessary regular Italian army officers, specialists and ordinary ground troops would begin to arrive in mid-January.⁶⁴

In the meanwhile, Hitler held a conference in the German Chancellery on 21 December with Göring, von Blomberg, Faupel, Warlimont, Friedrich Hossbach, the Wehrmacht liaison officer to the Führer and Werner von Fritsch, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army. They discussed further assistance to Franco. Faupel asked for three divisions to be sent to Spain but was vehemently opposed by the others for fear of prematurely risking a general war. The Führer therefore decided not to send large numbers of German troops because his wider diplomatic game would derive more benefit from a prolongation of the Spanish Civil War than from a quick victory for Franco. It had been thought in Berlin since late November that the longer the war went on, the more likely Italy was to be drawn into the German orbit. Nevertheless, it was decided that Germany would send sufficient help in the form of aircraft, arms and equipment to ensure that Franco was not defeated.⁶⁵ The Generalísimo was thus immensely fortunate to be able to count on support from Hitler and Mussolini which would be greater and more consistent than anything that the Republic could hope for from the Soviet Union.

In addition to the specialist regular troops necessary for the creation of the mixed Spanish-Italian brigades, Mussolini decided ‘in view of the unsatisfactory situation’ to send, two contingents of three thousand Black Shirts each, in self-contained units with their own officers, artillery and transport. On 14 December Roatta’s assistant, Lieutenant-Colonel Emilio Faldella, gave Franco a note to the effect that the Italian government wished the volunteers to be organized in autonomous Italian companies with Italian officers. It was made clear that these contingents would be additional to the proposed mixed brigades.⁶⁶ Franco wanted troops but not in autonomous units under Italian command. His annoyance was revealed when he asked Faldella ‘Who requested them?’ and snapped ‘When one sends troops to a friendly country, one at least asks permission’.⁶⁷

It is clear that Franco was glad to have the Black Shirts but had hoped simply to incorporate them into his own units as foreign legionaries. His suspicions of the efficacy of Falangist militias were not replicated with regard to the Italian Fascist volunteers since he had been told that they had been battle-hardened in Abyssinia. He was, of course, deeply irritated by the lack of consideration of his position implicit in the blunt and unexpected terms in which their arrival was announced. The strength of the Italian contingents that arrived in late December and early January was, according to a report by Faupel, based presumably on information from Roatta, ‘determined not by previous agreement with Franco but according to independent Italian estimates’.⁶⁸ Nevertheless, he hastened to use them as soon as they disembarked and, on 12 January, he would request another nine thousand Black Shirts.⁶⁹

Such external assistance was necessary to enable Franco to go forward from the deadlock in Madrid. On 28 November, General Saliquet had written to the Generalísimo with a proposal for an encircling operation, against the Madrid-La Coruña road to the north-west and a dual thrust from the south-west of Madrid and from Soria in the north-east towards Alcalá de Henares.⁷⁰ Franco mused over this proposal for three weeks and it was not until 19 December that he issued orders which would break the stalemate prevailing since he had called off the frontal assault on Madrid at the Leganés meeting on 23 November. They envisaged a refinement of Saliquet’s plan, implementing it closer to Madrid by three thrusts outwards from the exposed wedge which the Nationalists had driven into the capital’s defences.⁷¹

In heavy rain and fog, across muddy terrain, costly and sterile battles were fought for villages like Boadilla del Monte which was virtually destroyed. Varela was wounded on Christmas Day and field command was assumed by Orgaz. After crippling losses in the fighting, the attack was briefly called off. Roatta telegrammed the Ufficio Spagna on 27 December complaining of apathy at Franco’s headquarters and reporting that the Generalísimo’s staff was incapable of mounting an operation appropriate to a large-scale war.⁷² On 3 January, the assault was renewed with increased ferocity and reached the important crossroads at Las Rozas on the road to El Escorial and La Coruña. On 7 January, Pozuelo and Húmera fell. In six days, scarcely ten kilometres of road had been taken by the Nationalists. They had eased the pressure on their troops in the Casa de Campo and the Ciudad Universitaria but at enormous cost. When the fronts had stabilized by 15 January, each side had lost in the region of fifteen thousand men.⁷³ The various efforts to take Madrid had severely depleted Franco’s forces. The Republicans were now solidly dug in and Franco was fortunate that they were unable to seize the unique opportunity to launch a counter-attack to break through his severely overstretched lines.

In the midst of the reverses around Madrid, Franco was relieved to discover that his cultivation of the Church was bearing fruit. On 22 December, Cardinal Gomá returned from Rome where he had been frantically working for Vatican recognition of Franco. The cautious Curia held back but, in order to demonstrate the Church’s sympathy for Franco’s cause, Gomá was appointed the Vatican’s confidential Chargé d’Affaires in Nationalist Spain. It was the crucial first step towards full diplomatic recognition.⁷⁴ Gomá and the Generalísimo met on 29 December and agreed on a joint statement to the Vatican, in which it was made clear that, in the interests of eventual recognition, Franco was ready to do everything possible to favour the Church’s position in Spain.⁷⁵

The clinching of relations with the Vatican was of immense long-term political importance to Franco. In immediate terms, even more welcome was the military help promised by Mussolini. With the attacks around Madrid stalling, Franco had been relieved by the fact that in mid-December, the Duce had begun sending the first of what, by mid-February 1937, would be nearly fifty thousand fascist militiamen and regular troops masquerading as volunteers.⁷⁶ Whatever gloss Franco would put on it later, the arrival of Italian reinforcements was of crucial importance to his military survival. Inevitably, once the Duce had committed his own prestige to a Nationalist victory in Spain, the stalemate around Madrid quickly intensified his impatience with Franco. At the end of the year, he requested Hitler to send to a meeting in Rome in mid-January someone ‘with full powers’ to discuss Italo-German co-operation to bring about ‘a real decision in Spain’.⁷⁷ In fact, it was becoming ever more apparent that the Italians were going to be left by Hitler to make the decisive contribution to Franco’s success. Roatta reported to Rome on 12 January that Canaris had told him that Sperrle was pessimistic about both the initial efficacy of the Condor Legion and the state of the Nationalist forces. Sperrle, in turn, told Roatta that the real problem was German fear of provoking a premature war with France.⁷⁸

At the meeting held at the Palazzo Venezia on the evening of 14 January 1937, Hitler’s representative was Hermann Göring.^* Mussolini was irritated that Italo-German aid, rather than spurring Franco on to greater efforts, merely permitted him to indulge his natural inclination to wear down the Republic by a slow campaign of attrition. Göring agreed that, if Franco had known how to use it properly, the Italo-German material and technical assistance was enough to have permitted him to win already. The Air Minister declared bitterly that the recognition of Franco before the capture of Madrid had been a major error to remedy which it was agreed that he would have to be subjected to ‘energetic pressure’ to accelerate his operations and make full use of the lavish means put at his disposal.

Despite his expressions of solidarity with Mussolini, fear of international complications impelled Göring to say that Germany could not send a division to Spain. This left the immediate task of preventing Franco being defeated to the Duce who was disappointed but not unhappy to be the senior partner in Spain. Declaring that Franco must win, he said that there were no longer any restraints on his actions in Spain. To ensure that Franco adopt a more energetic policy, it was decided to oblige him to accept the joint Italo-German general staff. Mussolini and Göring agreed that to ensure Franco’s victory before, as they wrongly imagined would happen, the British erected an effective blockade to stop foreign intervention,^* substantial additional aid would have to be sent to Spain by the end of January. Mussolini suggested telling Franco that thereafter there would be no more help.⁷⁹

On the day after the meeting in the Palazzo Venezia, the chiefs of staff of the Italian military ministries met at the Palazzo Chigi with the staff of the Ufficio Spagna and Ciano’s representative Anfuso to discuss the minimum programme of aid to Franco. Partly out of contempt for Franco’s generalship and partly out of a desire to monopolize the anticipated triumph for Fascism, it was agreed that the Italian contingent must be used as an independent force under an Italian general only nominally responsible to Franco’s overall command. Three possibilities were outlined for the decisive action by which Italian forces would win the war for Franco. Mussolini favoured a massive assault from Teruel to Valencia to cut off Catalonia from the rest of Spain. This was to be preceded by the terror bombing of Valencia. However, it was acknowledged that such an operation required the full co-operation of Franco. A second option was a march from Sigüenza to Guadalajara to tighten irrevocably the Nationalist grip on Madrid. The third more limited possibility was the capture of Málaga to provide a seaport nearer to Italy and a launching pad for an attack on Valencia from the south-west.⁸⁰

After his failures around Madrid, Franco had little choice but to grit his teeth and acquiesce in the demeaning Italo-German suggestions which were communicated to him by Anfuso on 23 January. The document presented by Anfuso made it clear that international circumstances prevented aid being continued indefinitely.⁸¹ At first, the Generalísimo seemed perplexed.⁸² However, on the following day, he gave Anfuso a note expressing his thanks for Italo-German help and a desperate plea for it to continue for at least another three months.⁸³ The prospect of the British imposing an effective blockade galvanized him into giving serious consideration to the three strategic proposals made by the Italians. In effusively thanking Mussolini for his assistance, Franco told Anfuso that he would now accelerate the end of the war by undertaking a great decisive action. On 26 January, he accepted Roatta’s suggestion that, henceforth, the regular high-level advice of Faupel and Roatta on major strategic issues would be implemented by Franco’s own staff, in which were to be included ten senior German and Italian officers.⁸⁴ Mussolini considered that he could send instructions to Franco as to a subordinate.⁸⁵

Sensitive to any slur or slight, Franco cannot fail to have resented the clear insinuation of German and Italian disdain for his military prowess. Nevertheless, he showed no sign of it and accepted, along with the imposition of foreign staff officers, Mussolini’s strategic suggestions. According to Kindelán, anxious to play down Franco’s deference to the Duce, the Generalísimo was unsure of the military value of the new arrivals, despite the fact that they were well-equipped by comparison with his own troops and many had had experience in the Abyssinian war. He thus decided to test them in a relatively easy campaign in the south.⁸⁶

It is indeed the case that, to offset the failure in Madrid, the Generalísimo had already accepted a proposal from Queipo for a piecemeal advance towards Málaga. A sporadic campaign to mop up the rest of Andalusia, as savage and bloodthirsty as the march on Madrid, had been intensified in mid-December with considerable success.⁸⁷ However, after the arrival of Italian troops, the nature of the campaign changed dramatically. Rather than Franco skilfully blooding them in a campaign of his choice, they were engaged in an operation chosen by Mussolini. As the Black Shirts were setting out, Mussolini had reminded Roatta on 18 December 1936 of his own long-held conviction that a major attack should be launched against Málaga. Roatta immediately informed Franco of the Duce’s preference and found him grudgingly amenable (sufficientemente propenso) to it. Thereafter, the Duce followed the progress of the attack with an enthusiasm commensurate with it having been his own brainchild.⁸⁸

Franco wanted to incorporate the newly arrived Italians into mixed units on the Madrid front but had to acquiesce in Mussolini’s desire to see them operate autonomously in Andalusia.⁸⁹ In the light of the thin and scattered defences of Málaga, Roatta wanted a guerra celere (rapid strike) attack by his own motorised columns whereas Franco favoured Queipo’s original proposal for a gradual but thorough conquest of Republican territory. Franco was not much interested in a lightning victory for which Mussolini could take the credit and which might end the war before his leadership was consolidated. On 27 December, Roatta effectively overruled the Generalísimo’s preference for a slow advance backed up by political purges. They reached a compromise in which both types of assault would take place simultaneously. Franco had to bite his tongue when his request for two Italian motorised companies for the Madrid front was rejected by Roatta on the grounds of his own greater needs in preparing the attack on Málaga. On 9 January 1937, an optimistic Roatta and a sceptical Queipo agreed a division of responsibilities which reflected Franco’s concessions.⁹⁰ Under the direction of Queipo de Llano who was installed on the battlecruiser Canarias, and of Roatta on land, two columns began to advance in mid-January. By the end of the month after the capture of Alhama on the Málaga-Granada road, they were ready for the final push.

Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, Chief of Staff of the Condor Legion, wrote in his diary on 3 February ‘nothing is known about the Italians, their whereabouts and their intentions. Franco knows nothing either. He really ought to go to Seville to put himself in the picture and hope for a share of the Málaga victory laurels.’⁹¹ To make good his ignorance and to give the impression of overall control of events, Franco was already travelling from Salamanca to Seville on 3 February, the same day on which, in torrential rain, the Italo-Spanish forces moved on Málaga. The advance took the form of troops distributed in a large concentric circle, the Spanish units moving eastwards from Marbella and the Italian motorized columns racing south west from Alhama without concern for their flanks.⁹² The Generalísimo visited the front and on 5 February at Antequera discussed the progress of the campaign with Queipo and Roatta. Convinced that the operation was going to be succesful, he did not wait for the fall of Málaga but returned to Seville on 6 February and to Salamanca on the following day to oversee a new push on the Madrid front.⁹³

On 7 February, after a rapid march, Nationalists and Italians reached Málaga. Its military command had been changed with alarming frequency in the preceding days, morale was abysmally low, and after bombing raids by Italian aircraft and bombardment by Nationalist warships, the city collapsed easily. Italian troops were first to enter Málaga and briefly ruled the city before ostentatiously handing it over to the Spaniards. Roatta claimed the victory for Mussolini and sent a triumphant, and implicitly wounding, telegram to Franco: ‘Troops under my command have the honour to hand over the city of Málaga to Your Excellency’.⁹⁴ In fact, given the massive numerical and logistical superiority of the attackers, the triumph was less of an achievement than it seemed at the time. Neglected by the Valencia government, the defending forces were in more or less the same state of readiness as the improvised militiamen who had faced Franco’s Army of Africa six months earlier.⁹⁵ Neither the Nationalists nor the Italians showed much mercy. The international outcry was less than that provoked by the massacre of Badajoz, because Franco had ordered all war correspondents to be kept out of Málaga.⁹⁶ After the battle, Queipo and Roatta sent a motorised column to pursue refugees escaping along the coast road. Within the city itself nearly four thousand Republicans were shot in the first week alone and the killings continued on a large scale for months. The refugees who blocked the road out of Málaga were shelled from the sea and bombed and machine-gunned from the air.⁹⁷

When Roatta’s news of the victory at Málaga reached Salamanca, Franco unsurprisingly showed little interest. His humiliating subordination to Mussolini had been starkly underlined. Millán Astray, who came to congratulate the Generalísimo and found him absorbed gazing at a huge wall map, exclaimed: ‘I expected to find you celebrating the victory in Málaga not here on your own looking at a map.’ Franco diminished the Italian achievement by pointing at the map and saying ‘Just look what remains to be conquered! I can’t afford the luxury of taking time off.’⁹⁸ This gloomy and contrived effect of unceasing military dedication was out of tune with Franco’s normally irrepressible faith in victory. He was certainly preoccupied by the progress of the battle in the Jarama valley which he had launched just as Málaga was about to fall but he could hardly have been immune to the fact that the loss of Málaga was a fierce blow to the Republic in terms of captured territory, prisoners and weaponry. He had gained the food-producing province of Málaga and most of Granada, deprived his enemies of a strategically crucial sea port with a population of one hundred and fifty thousand people and shortened the southern front. The feigned lack of interest revealed his resentment of the disdainful Roatta and the fact that he could take no pleasure in a triumph attributed by the world’s press to Mussolini.⁹⁹

The fall of Málaga provoked a major internecine crisis within the Republic. The Communists began to reveal their impatience with Largo Caballero and obliged him to accept the resignation of General Asensio, his under-secretary of war.¹⁰⁰ Ironically, the one negative consequence for Franco of such an easy victory was the totally erroneous notion that both he and Mussolini derived of the efficacy of the Italian contingent.¹⁰¹ Mussolini was so delighted that he promoted Roatta to Major-General. The Duce and his Chief of Staff at the Ministry of the Army, Alberto Pariani, immediately produced ambitious plans for the Italian troops to sweep on to Almería and then through Murcia and Alicante to Valencia.¹⁰² However, Roatta’s reports to Rome on the eve of the attack on Málaga had presented a bleak picture of Italian disorganization, indiscipline and lack of technical preparation. Now he had to restrain Mussolini’s enthusiasm and persuade him that a long haul along the south coast exposed to constant flank attack would be less decisive than operations envisaged by Franco in the centre.¹⁰³

Franco was happy to get Italian help on the Madrid front and quick to deflate the euphoric Queipo who was anxious to use the triumph at Málaga as the basis for a triumphal march through Eastern Andalusia towards Almería. Franco remained obsessed with Madrid and had no reason to want to give away triumphs to Queipo de Llano. Accordingly, he prohibited further advance in Andalusia, to the bitter chagrin of Queipo.¹⁰⁴ It was, however, with some trepidation that Franco viewed the prospect of what seemed at the time like a fearsome Italian army, directed from Rome, allowing Mussolini graciously to hand him victories on a plate. It was a perception which would have disastrous consequences during the battle of Guadalajara.

At this time the nationalist press began to circulate a story which linked Franco’s destiny with the intercession of the saints. Allegedly, in the chaos of defeat, the military commander of Málaga, Colonel José Villalba Rubio, left various items of luggage behind him when he fled. In a suitcase left in his hotel was found the holy relic of the hand of St Teresa of Avila which had been stolen from the Carmelite Convent at Ronda.¹⁰⁵ In fact, the relic was found in police custody. It was sent to Franco who kept it with him for the rest of his life. The recovery of the relic was the excuse for the exaltation of St Teresa as ‘the Saint of the Race’, the champion of Spain and her religion in the Reconquista, during the conquest of America and in the battles of the Counter-Reformation. Catholic and political propagandists alike stressed the Saint’s association with the Caudillo in similar exaltation of his providential role.¹⁰⁶ Franco himself seems to have believed in his special relationship with St Teresa. Cardinal Gomá reported Franco’s reluctance to part with the arm as proof of his intense Catholic faith and his belief that he was leading a religious crusade. The Bishop of Málaga granted permission for the relic to remain in Franco’s possession and never left his side on any trip which obliged him to sleep away from home.^*107

Encouraged by the easy success which he anticipated in the south and by the availability of the Condor Legion, Franco had simultaneously renewed his efforts to take Madrid. On 6 February 1937, an army of nearly sixty thousand well-equipped men, under the direction of General Orgaz, had launched a huge attack through the Jarama valley towards the Madrid-Valencia highway to the east of the capital. Still convinced that he could capture the capital, Franco took a special interest in the campaign.¹⁰⁸ Two days later, his determination to win would be intensified by a desire for a victory to overshadow the Italian triumph at Málaga.

Almost simultaneously, Mussolini had sent a new Ambassador to Nationalist Spain, the emollient Roberto Cantalupo, who arrived shortly after the battle for Málaga.¹⁰⁹ It was a reflection of Franco’s seething resentment at the behaviour of Roatta and Mussolini over the conquest of Málaga that he kept Cantalupo waiting for days before receiving him. Cantalupo got a sense that, although everyone knew that Málaga had been captured by the Italians, no one said so. ‘Here’, he reported to Ciano on 17 February, ‘the coin of gratitude circulates hardly at all.’ When he finally met the Caudillo for an informal meeting, Cantalupo got the impression that Franco believed in ultimate victory but was no longer certain that it was anything other than a long way off. If anything, the Caudillo seemed to prefer the prospect of a long war although he put off explaining why for a future meeting. He did make it clear that he would not contemplate a negotiated peace.¹¹⁰

The implicit conflict between Mussolini’s urge for the rapid and spectacular defeat of the Republic and Franco’s gradual approach quickly came into the open. Four days after the fall of Málaga, Roatta being wounded, he sent his Chief of Staff, Colonel Emilio Faldella, to visit the Generalísimo in Salamanca and discuss the next operation in which the Corpo di Truppe Volontarie (CTV), as the Italian forces now came to be known, might be used. On the afternoon of 12 February, Faldella found Franco’s staff jubilant about their forces’ early thrust over the Jarama river and what they assumed to be an imminent and decisive victory. Faldella was told by Franco’s chief of operations, Colonel Antonio Barroso, that Alcalá de Henares would be occupied within five days and Madrid cut off from Valencia. Faldella told Barroso that he was going to propose that the next operation for the CTV should be an offensive against both Sagunto, to the north of Valencia, and Valencia itself, one of the options favoured by Mussolini since mid-January and communicated to the Generalísimo by Anfuso on 22 January. Barroso advised him against even mentioning it on the grounds that Franco would never allow the Italians to carry out an autonomous assault on a politically sensitive target like the Republican capital, given his central concern with his own prestige. Accordingly, after consulting Roatta by telephone, Faldella altered the note which he had brought for Franco to suggest instead the remaining option of those contemplated by Mussolini after the meeting with Göring, a major push from Sigüenza to Guadalajara to close the circle around Madrid.¹¹¹

When Faldella was received by Franco at 8 p.m. on 13 February, the usually polite Generalísimo ostentatiously failed to thank him for the Italian action at Málaga and said ‘the note has surprised me, because it is a real imposition’. The expected success in the Jarama gave the Caudillo the confidence to speak in stronger terms than previously to Faldella, who was after all the acting military representative of Mussolini. ‘When all is said and done’, Franco told Faldella, ‘Italian troops have been sent here without requesting my authorization. First I was told that companies of volunteers were coming to be incorporated into Spanish battalions. Then I was asked for them to be formed into independent battalions on their own and I agreed. Next senior officers and generals arrived to command them, and finally already-formed units began to arrive. Now you want to oblige me to allow these troops to fight together under General Roatta’s orders, when my plans were altogether different.’ Faldella replied that the reasoning behind all this was simply that Mussolini was trying to make good the failure of the Germans to supply troops to which Franco responded: ‘This is a war of a special kind, that has to be fought with exceptional methods so that such a numerous mass cannot be used all at once, but spread out over several fronts it would be more useful.’¹¹² These remarks revealed not just Franco’s resentments about Italian aid, but also the limitations of his strategic vision. His preference for piecemeal actions over a wide area reflected both his own practical military experiences in a small-scale colonial war and his desire to conquer Spain slowly and so consolidate his political supremacy.¹¹³

Faldella tried to make him see the opportunity for a decisive victory offered by the determined use of the Italian CTV. Franco would not be shaken from his preference for the gradual and systematic occupation of Republican territory: ‘In a civil war, a systematic occupation of territory accompanied by the necessary purge (limpieza) is preferable to a rapid rout of the enemy armies which leaves the country still infested with enemies.’ Faldella pointed out that a rapid defeat of the Republic at Valencia would make it easier for him to root out the Left in Spain. At this point, Barroso interrupted and, as his master’s voice, said ‘you must take into account that the Generalísimo’s prestige is the most important thing in this war, and that it is absolutely unacceptable that Valencia, the seat of the Republican government, should be occupied by foreign troops.’¹¹⁴

On the following day, Franco sent a written reply to Faldella, in which he grudgingly accepted his offer of an attack from Sigüenza to Guadalajara. He claimed that he had never wanted Italian troops used en masse for fear of international complications and because it was damaging for ‘decisive actions against objectives of the highest political importance to be carried out other than by the joint action of Spanish and Italian units’.¹¹⁵ Cantalupo believed that the Caudillo had been had brought around by an Italian promise to ensure that Spanish troops entered Madrid as the victors.¹¹⁶ In fact, he was responding to sticks as well as carrots. The potential conflict between Franco and the commanders of the CTV was such that Roatta flew to Rome to discuss the problem with Mussolini. The Duce reacted firmly in support of Roatta, threatening to withdraw his forces if Franco continued to respond as he had to Faldella. To show that he meant business, twenty fighter aircraft promised to Franco were redirected to the Italian command in Spain which was given control over the Air Force units which had previously flown under the Generalísimo’s orders.¹¹⁷

Mussolini’s threat drew additional effect because it came as the Nationalist attack in the Jarama ground to a halt. The Jarama valley was defended fiercely by Republican troops reinforced by the International Brigades and the battle saw the most vicious fighting of the entire Civil War. As in the battle for the La Coruña road, the Nationalist front advanced a few miles, but no major strategic gain was made. Once again Madrid was saved, albeit at a high cost in blood. The Republicans lost more than ten thousand including some of the best British and American members of the Brigades, and the Nationalists about seven thousand.¹¹⁸

Franco’s earlier defiance turned to desperation. Now, only six days after his churlish treatment of Faldella on 13 February, he sent Barroso to beg him to begin the offensive as soon as possible. Faldella refused, on the grounds that his planned initiative could not be rushed and so, on the following day, Millán Astray asked Faldella to see him. They dined together at CTV headquarters on 21 February and Millán spoke in ‘pathetic terms’ about the Nationalists’ difficulties around Madrid and begged for a rapid Italian intervention. Faldella was convinced that Millán Astray had come at Franco’s behest. In the event, Franco had to wait until Faldella and Roatta were ready. After all, moving the Italian Army from Málaga to central Spain was no easy task.

The Generalísimo’s desire to use the Italians as reinforcements within his Jarama campaign was coldly brushed aside. A seething Franco was having to bend to what the Italians wanted. The general plan of operations which he sent to Mola on 23 February exactly followed the strategy outlined in Faldella’s note of 13 February. One week later, the Italians were still not ready and, on 1 March, Barroso again pleaded with Faldella to persuade Roatta to begin an immediate action.¹¹⁹ Although Orgaz and Varela had managed to hold the line at the Jarama, the Generalísimo was desperate for a diversion to relieve his exhausted forces. For Franco, an Italian attack on Guadalajara, forty miles north-east of Madrid, would be an ideal distraction. That was not what the Italians had in mind at all. A major disaster was in the making.

^* Yagüe wanted to penetrate along a line through the poorly defended north-eastern suburbs of Puerta de Hierro, Dehesa de la Villa and Cuatro Caminos while Varela favoured a similar thrust through the south-eastern suburbs of Vallecas and Vicálvaro.

^* Formally directed by Conte Luca Pietromarchi, the Ufficio Spagna was under the authority of Ciano, and enjoyed virtual autonomy in military decisions.

^* The only explicit evidence of a request by Franco is Faupel’s telegram to the Baron von Neurath, which was reported in the French press at the time and not denied. Moreover, the alleged request closely coincides with the decision by Mussolini on 6 December to send substantial reinforcements. Mussolini’s appreciation of Franco’s needs was made on the basis of reports from various agents in Spain including Anfuso and General Roatta. Given the close contact between Franco and Roatta since September, it is improbable that Roatta would have made recommendations likely to be disowned by the Generalísimo.

^* Göring’s visit to Rome was a symbolic affirmation of the growing warmth between the Nazi and Fascist regimes. During a packed programme, he visited the Fencing Academy at the Forum where he challenged Mussolini to a sabre duel. To the delight of the senior Nazis and Fascists present, they slugged it out for twenty minutes, showing remarkable agility given their respective sizes – with Mussolini the eventual victor (Ramón Garriga, Guadalajara y sus consecuencias (Madrid, 1974) pp. 42–3).

^* The Anglo-French policy of Non-Intervention, adopted in August 1936, was a farce which favoured the Nationalists at the expense of the Republic and appeased the fascist dictators. It was described by a Foreign Office official as ‘an extremely useful piece of humbug’. It is clear that a more resolute attitude by London would have inhibited the Germans and Italians in their assistance to Franco. (Enrique Moradiellos, Neutralidad benévola: el Gobierno británico y la insurrección militar española de 1936 (Oviedo, 1990) pp. 117–88; Douglas Little, Malevolent Neutrality: The United States, Great Britain, and the Origins of the Spanish Civil War (Ithaca, 1985) pp. 221–65.)

^* An aide was appointed specifically to to carry it and to guard it against loss or theft. Occasionally, over the years, the nuns wrote to Franco requesting that he return the hand if only for a period of loan of a month, three weeks or a fortnight. Franco, fearful that he would not get it back, never complied, arranging instead for his faithful cousin Pacón to send a charitable donation to pacify them.