The Last Days of the Spanish Republic. Paul Preston

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СКАЧАТЬ Huertas (respectively commanders of the armies of Andalusia and of Extremadura), Colonel Antonio Camacho Benítez, commander of the air force in the centre-south zone, and the commander of the fleet, Admiral Buiza.

      With the Army of Catalonia in the process of crossing into France, Hernández was effectively the senior civilian authority in the army (after Negrín as Minister of Defence and Prime Minister). The officers present (mainly career officers whose service pre-dated 1936) intensely resented commissars in general and Hernández in particular. The first item of business was the launch by Hernández of a dramatic manifesto to the nation, calling for last-ditch resistance and the mobilization of the remaining drafts of conscripts. His presentation was repeatedly and rudely interrupted by Casado, whose hostile reaction effectively revealed what he was up to. Rather more politely, the other officers present supported Casado’s remarks about the impossibility of continuing the war. Buiza stressed the precarious situation of the Republican navy and Colonel Camacho spoke in deeply pessimistic terms of the massive superiority of the Francoist air force, with nearly 1,500 aircraft opposed to the Republic’s barely 100 usable machines. The only officer who did not oppose Hernández was Miaja who, after a heavy lunch, gave the impression of being asleep. He woke once, pointing at Vidal Zapater and asking Matallana who he was. When Matallana replied that he was a stenographer, Miaja, being rather deaf, asked again, and Matallana shouted, ‘A stenographer!’ Miaja then returned to his siesta. Vidal Zapater suspected that this was a pantomime on Miaja’s part to save him from having to take sides openly. In contrast, Casado’s recklessness may well have been part of his efforts to secure allies within the high command.26

      That Casado should have proceeded with his anti-Negrín plans after the ratification a few days later, on 9 February, of Franco’s Law of Political Responsibilities was a measure of the vehement anti-communism that he shared with the Caudillo. Retroactive to October 1934 and published on 13 February, the law aimed to ‘punish the guilt of those who contributed by acts or omissions to foment red subversion, to keep it alive for more than two years and thereby undermine the providential and historically inevitable triumph of the National Movement’. The law deemed all Republicans to be guilty of the crime of military rebellion.27 The arrogance and egoism that underlay Casado’s actions persuaded him that the law could not possibly be applied to him. Even before he got the requested letter from Barrón, on 10 February, Colonel Ungría had received a message from one of his agents which read: ‘Casado in agreement with Besteiro, he requests that the lives of decent officers be respected.’ This extremely limited, not to say selfish, request suggests that Casado and his closest collaborators believed that some sort of esprit de corps united professional officers on both sides of the lines and exempted them from Franco’s vengeful plans. It is clear that he was happy to pay for Franco’s mercy in Communist blood. As he later revealed to his contacts in the Fifth Column, Casado’s intention was to escape. At the same time, his rhetoric was about astounding the world with an historic achievement, the bloodless end to the Civil War. Presumably, he could have escaped at any time but to have done so would have covered him in shame, whereas, he believed, his plan would allow him to escape covered in glory.

      Whether he realized it or not, Casado was about to sacrifice thousands of civilian lives. Even if Franco’s promises of immunity for professional soldiers were to be believed, his entire conduct of the war, his recent declarations and the publication of the Law of Political Responsibilities should have shown Casado that the surrender that he was contemplating would have bloody consequences for the Republican population. Franco had turned away from several opportunities to end the conflict quickly, preferring instead a slow war of attrition aimed at annihilating the Republic’s mass support. As his declarations to the United Press in early November 1938 had made clear, there would be no amnesty for the Republicans.

      Negrín, in contrast, had long since been tortured by a sense of responsibility towards the Republican population. In July 1938, when a senior Republican figure, almost certainly Azaña, suggested that an agreement with the rebels was an inevitable necessity, he responded: ‘Make a pact? And what about the poor soldier of Medellín?’ At the time, Medellín, near Don Benito, was the furthermost point on the Extremadura front and about to fall. Since Franco demanded total surrender, Negrín knew that, at best, a mediated peace might secure the escape of several hundred, maybe some thousands, of political figures but that the army and the great majority of ordinary Republicans would be at the mercy of the Francoists, who would be pitiless.28 Knowing that Franco would not consider an armistice, Negrín refused to contemplate unconditional surrender. On 7 August, he had said to his friend Juan Simeón Vidarte: ‘I will not hand over hundreds of defenceless Spaniards who are fighting heroically for the Republic so that Franco can have the pleasure of shooting them as he has done in his own Galicia, in Andalusia, in the Basque country and all those places where the hoofs of Attila’s horse have left their mark.’29

      In his determination to see the war end with the least suffering for the Republican population, Negrín was unable to rely on the support of the President Manuel Azaña. At their meeting on 30 January, he had tried to persuade Azaña that, after he had crossed into France, he should return to Madrid immediately, but Azaña refused on the grounds that to do so would constitute support for Negrín’s plans for resistance. The scale of Azaña’s panic was such that Negrín had him placed under surveillance lest he head for France without warning. When it was apparent that he could not be persuaded to stay, Negrín offered to put an aircraft at his disposal to fly to Paris, but Azaña refused for fear that he would be taken back to the centre-south zone in Spain against his will. Martínez Barrio told Álvarez del Vayo that before going into the meeting Azaña had said: ‘Negrín can tie me up, he can gag me and put me on an aeroplane. That’s the only way he’s going to get me to the centre-south zone, but as soon as I get off the plane and they remove the gag, I will scream until they either kill me or let me go.’30

      In the meeting, he declared that, once he had crossed the frontier into France, he would not return under any circumstances and would devote himself only to seeking a peace treaty. Negrín was finally obliged to accept that the President could not be persuaded to return immediately. When Azaña said that he planned to go to the house of his brother-in-law, Cipriano Rivas Cherif, in Collonges-sous-Salève, Negrín told him that he must take up residence in the Spanish Embassy in Paris. Azaña agreed to go to the Embassy but insisted that he would not return to Spain. Accordingly, Negrín told Azaña that this meant he should therefore withdraw his confidence from his Prime Minister and name a substitute who could negotiate surrender with Franco. Azaña did not respond. This left Negrín with the option only of resignation. And to resign, knowing as he did what could be expected of Franco’s ‘justice’, would have seemed to him a betrayal of the Republican masses. To mitigate the damaging consequences of Azaña’s cowardice, Negrín said that the government would announce that the circumstances obliged the President to take up temporary residence in the Spanish Embassy in Paris. Azaña replied that, if such an announcement was made, he would not contradict it but that he still had no intention of returning. After the meeting, Negrín told Julio Álvarez del Vayo that he was sure that Azaña was reacting emotionally and that he would eventually see that he had to return to Spain.31 In consequence, both Negrín and Azaña would have different recollections of what had been agreed at the meeting. In a letter to his friend Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo, Azaña wrote five months later that he had told Negrín that, irrespective of any such announcement, he would not return to Spain. However, when Negrín reached Paris on 7 March 1939 after the Casado coup, he told Marcelino Pascua, the Spanish Ambassador to France, that the agreement had been for Azaña to reside in France merely provisionally until the government had re-established itself in Madrid. This accounts for the cold tone of Negrín’s subsequent telegrams to Azaña requesting his return to Spain.32

      When Pascua received the news of the President’s СКАЧАТЬ