The Last Days of the Spanish Republic

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Although Casado had never joined the Communist Party, as had many other career officers on the Republican side, his ferocious anti-communism was of recent vintage. He was a freemason with a pedigree as a Republican. When the military coup took place in July 1936, he was still commander of Manuel Azaña’s presidential guard. He took part in the defence of Madrid from the attacks through the sierra to the north of the capital. According to his own account, in October 1936 he was dismissed as head of operations of the general staff for his criticism of the way in which priority was being given to the Communist Fifth Regiment (Quinto Regimiento) in the distribution of Soviet weaponry. In fact, the decision had been made by Vicente Rojo, who thought him incompetent. Antonio Cordón, the under-secretary of the Ministry of Defence, had a higher opinion of Casado than Rojo had, regarding him as intelligent and professional. However, Cordón believed that Casado’s positive qualities were neutralized by his ‘overweening pride and uncontrolled ambition’. Believing himself to be the man who could win the war, Casado was eaten up with resentment that he had not been promoted to positions commensurate with his own estimates of his worth. His bitterness was focused on Rojo. Nevertheless, over the following months, he was given important postings. Indalecio Prieto made him commander of the Army of Andalusia and, in May 1938, Negrín appointed him commander of the Army of the Centre.3 (#litres_trial_promo) This last appointment was interpreted by the ex-Communist Francisco-Félix Montiel in terms of a bizarre conspiracy theory that Casado had been chosen by the Russians for his incompetence as part of a long-term plan to bring the war to an end without blame for the Communist Party.4 (#litres_trial_promo) It is more plausibly an indication that the Communists were not as committed, as Casado later claimed that they were, to total domination of the Republic’s armed forces.

The reasons for Besteiro’s involvement went back much further. His experiences during the repression which followed the Socialist-led general strike of 1917 intensified his repugnance for violence. He became aware of the futility of Spain’s weak Socialist movement undertaking a frontal assault on the state. He opposed the PSOE’s affiliation to the Moscow-based Communist International (Comintern), and a period in England on a scholarship to do research on the Workers’ Educational Association in 1924 confirmed his reformism. He had argued from his position as president of both the PSOE and the UGT that, in order to build up working-class strength, the Socialist movement should accept the offer that it collaborate with the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera. Yet, in mid-1930, he argued against Socialist collaboration in the broad opposition front established by the Pact of San Sebastián and eventually in the future government of the Republic. Finding himself in a minority, in February 1931, he felt obliged to resign as president of both the party and the union.5 (#litres_trial_promo) Thus began a process of marginalization from his erstwhile comrades. Moreover, his theoretical abstractions about the nature of the historical process through which Spain was passing seem to have given him a sense of knowing better than they did. Indeed, as President of the Cortes between 1931 and 1933, he had manifested some hostility towards the deputies of his own party.

With the bulk of the PSOE and the UGT eager to use the apparatus of the state to introduce basic social reforms, Besteiro’s abstentionist views fell on deaf ears. In fact, the rank and file of the Socialist movement was moving rapidly away from the positions advocated by Besteiro. Right-wing intransigence radicalized the grass-roots militants. The conclusion drawn by an influential section of the leadership led by Largo Caballero was that the Socialists should meet the needs of the rank and file by seeking more rather than less responsibility in the government. Besteiro’s belief that socialism would come if only socialists were well behaved underlay a disturbing complacency regarding fascism. He opposed the growing radicalization of the Socialist movement.6 (#litres_trial_promo) Thus he had opposed its participation in the revolutionary insurrection of October 1934 which had followed the inclusion of the right-wing CEDA in the government.7 (#litres_trial_promo) His failure to understand the real threat of fascism prefigured some of his misplaced optimism about Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War.8 (#litres_trial_promo)

In the course of that Civil War, Besteiro had behaved in a way which confirmed the suspicion of many within the PSOE that he did not fully understand the great political struggles of the day. Outside of political circles, he reinforced his popularity by refusing numerous opportunities to seek a safe exile.9 (#litres_trial_promo) He continued to work in the university, being elected Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in October 1936. At the same time, he assiduously fulfilled his duties as a parliamentary deputy, as councillor of the Ayuntamiento de Madrid, to which he had been elected on 12 April 1931, and as president of the Committee for the Reconstruction of the Capital. His friends tried frantically to persuade him to leave Madrid. Yet, despite, indeed because of, his view that the war would end disastrously for the Republic, he steadfastly refused. From the beginning, Besteiro made no secret of his, at the time, inopportune commitment to a peace settlement. As Spain’s representative at the coronation of George VI in London on 12 May 1937, he had tried to seek mediation by the British government, but it was a bad moment for such an initiative. The rebels were in the ascendant – in the north, the fall of Bilbao was expected from one day to the next. At the same time, the Republican government was facing significant internal difficulties. In Barcelona, from 3 to 10 May, the forces of the government and the anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labour (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, or CNT) were locked in a bloody struggle for control of the city. Besteiro’s mission was doomed to failure. In his absence, the Largo Caballero cabinet fell. The resolution of the crisis with the appointment of Juan Negrín as Prime Minister of the so-called ‘Government of Victory’ on 17 May seemed to bring to an end the political infighting that had characterized the previous history of the Republic at war. Negrín, with the remarkable organizational ability that he had demonstrated in the Ministry of Finance, was regarded as the man who could create a centralized war effort.

This seemed possible because May 1937 had seen the defeat of the revolutionary elements within the Republic – the FAI (Federación Anarquista Ibérica), the extremist wing of the anarchist movement, and the anti-Stalinist POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista) – and the marginalization of the rhetorically revolutionary wing of the PSOE under Largo Caballero. However, that did not mean that any of these groups accepted their fate with docility. As military defeats mounted – the loss of the north, and of Teruel, and the division of the Republic in two – their resentments would grow and be focused increasingly on Negrín and the Communists. As far as Besteiro was concerned, his desire to be the man who brought peace was shattered on the rock of Negrín’s determination to fight on to victory. Since Negrín believed, rightly, that only a major military triumph by the Republic would bring Franco to the negotiating table, he had no interest in fostering Besteiro’s ambitions. The highly touchy Besteiro, however, perceived an insult in Negrín’s understandable failure to follow up on his London trip.10 (#litres_trial_promo) Disappointed that his inflated sense of the importance of his own mission was not matched by Negrín, Besteiro began to harbour a fierce grudge against the new Prime Minister. The fall of the Largo Caballero government in mid-May 1937 opened up the post of ambassador in France. Besteiro aspired to the Spanish Embassy in Paris in order to seek French mediation in the war, but Negrín’s commitment to resistance to the last against Franco made such an appointment impossible.

In the wake of the failure of his peace mission, Besteiro returned to his university post and his position in the Madrid Ayuntamiento. As a city councillor, he worked hard on the problems of the besieged capital to the detriment of his health. He was tortured by the idea that mistakes made in the early 1930s, particularly Socialist participation in government, had been responsible for the war. He was also appalled by the violence of the conflict and especially by the sound of firing squads and gunshots in the night – which he took to be the sounds of political assassinations.11 (#litres_trial_promo) In contrast, in the last months of the war, he seemed oblivious to reports of the Francoist repression in captured areas.12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Initially, Besteiro’s stance as a silent but critical spectator of the Republican government had puzzled many rank-and-file Socialists, although as the war progressed, his stock began to rise again. The departure from government of Largo Caballero in May 1937 had provoked considerable anti-Communist sentiment within the PSOE in Madrid and much of the UGT. Similarly, the removal in April 1938 of the ever pessimistic Prieto from his post as Minister of Defence had intensified anti-Communism within Socialist ranks. This was unfair. The Communists had certainly wanted to see a more positive and dynamic person as Minister of Defence, but they had been keen to see Prieto kept in the government. They feared, as actually was to happen, that his spleen would quickly be directed against them. As it turned out, it was Prieto who refused a different ministry in the cabinet formed on 5 April. Fomented even further by Prieto’s embittered and tendentious interpretations of what had happened, the growing resentment of the Communists would undermine the principal bulwark of the Republican war effort.13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Besteiro, like Prieto, conveniently ignored the immense contribution of the Communist Party to the survival of the Republic. A key component of the People’s Army, the party had lost thousands of militants either killed, seriously wounded or captured as territory fell to the Francoists. By the end of 1937, some 60 per cent of the PCE’s militants were in the People’s Army. It was calculated that around 50,000 had been captured by the rebels after the fall of Málaga, Santander and the Asturias. Another 20,000 had been lost in the course of the battle of the Ebro and the last-ditch defence of Catalonia.14 (#litres_trial_promo) On 18 February 1939, General Rojo sent Negrín an analysis of the possibilities of maintaining resistance in the centre-south zone. In his covering letter, he wrote of the PCE:

I don’t need to tell you that of all the political parties, it has been and remains the only one with which I sympathize. I believe that they are making a big mistake, even in assuming the general responsibility for the field commanders and the overall leadership of this phase of the struggle, because they are going to ensure that the efforts of the enemy and from all countries will be concentrated on them even further. They will end up ensuring the definitive destruction of their party, the only one that is relatively healthy within our political organization.15 (#litres_trial_promo)

In general, the anarchists resented the Communist pre-eminence in the armed forces. This was largely to do with the fact that, in endeavouring to create a centralized and effective war effort, the revolutionary ambitions of the anarchists had been reined in, sometimes brutally. This was perceived by all sectors of the libertarian movement as simply a desire on the part of the Communists to attain a monopoly of power, and the underlying military necessity was utterly ignored. On the other hand, there were numerous complaints of anarchists being murdered. It was certainly the case that there was considerable hostility between Communists and anarchists within the army, in part because of the harsh discipline imposed by Communist commanders. Summary executions of deserters and of commanders deemed to be ineffective were not uncommon. The anarchists alleged that a Communist terror was carried out in front-line units, complaining that there were ‘thousands and thousands of comrades who confess that they feel more fear of being assassinated by the adversary alongside them than of being killed in battle by the enemies opposite’. In a spirit of revenge, in the Levante, lists were drawn up of the names of Communists within military units. Those listed would become targets after the Casado coup. In fact, Communist influence within the armed forces was considerably less than that alleged by the anarchists.16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Forgetting or perhaps unconcerned by the need for the Republic to be defended militarily, after his return from London Besteiro had become even more anti-Communist and commensurately less hostile to the Francoists. The main target of his obsession was Negrín, whom he frequently accused of being a Communist. This view was increasingly shared by many within the Socialist Party. Largo Caballero, for instance, was outraged when Julián Zugazagoitia, then Negrín’s Minister of the Interior, had prohibited a meeting in Alicante at which, it was feared, he planned to denounce the Prime Minister and thereby undermine the war effort.17 (#litres_trial_promo) Thus the followers of Largo Caballero, Prieto and Besteiro were converging in their anti-Communism and could count on the growing sympathy of the President, Manuel Azaña. Negrín, overwhelmed by his efforts, as premier, to improve the international situation of the Republic and, as Minister of Defence, to run the war effort, did not have the time to combat the corrosive effect of the growing anti-Communism which, in some cases, overcame the higher priority of the defence of the Republic and thus contributed to division, despair and defeatism.18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Besteiro’s hostility to the Communists masked his more generalized lack of enthusiasm for the Republican cause. At his later trial at the hands of the Francoists, it was revealed by his defence lawyer that in the course of 1937 he had used his position as Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters to protect several Falangists in the university. Through some of these colleagues, Professors Julio Palacios (the Vice-Rector), Antonio Luna García, Luis de Sosa y Pérez and Julio Martínez Santa Olalla, he had established contact with the clandestine Fifth Column in Madrid. In fact, since September 1937, Luna García had run an important section of the Fifth Column in Madrid, known as the ‘Organización Antonio’, which had been created at the end of the previous year by Captain José López Palazón.19 (#litres_trial_promo) In his statement on Besteiro’s behalf to the military tribunal, Luna García spoke of his surprise at the vehemence with which Besteiro had criticized the Republican government.

His report at the time to Burgos identified Besteiro as a potential target for the Fifth Column. In April 1938, Luna was instructed by the clandestine organization of the Falange to try to persuade Besteiro to move beyond refusal to work with the government and to try actively to bring the war to an end. This initiative coincided with the division of Republican territory by the successful Francoist offensive through Aragon to the Mediterranean coast. With the Republic’s central zone cut off from the government in Valencia, Besteiro agreed. From the summer of 1938, he started to lobby energetically to be permitted to form a cabinet as a preliminary step to peace negotiations.20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Besteiro’s position was converging with that of Segismundo Casado. Already in the summer of 1938, shortly after Casado’s promotion to the command of the Army of the Centre, a prominent member of the Madrid Fifth Column, the Falangist Antonio Bouthelier España, had approached him. Bouthelier was able to get near to Casado because he was secretary to the prominent CNT member Manuel Salgado, who worked in the security services of the Army of the Centre. He had used this position to help Francoists cross the lines. Bouthelier also had a short-wave radio with which he passed information to rebel headquarters. For various reasons, the Francoist espionage service was aware of Casado’s anti-communism. His brother Lieutenant Colonel César Casado was a member of the Fifth Column, and Segismundo Casado was doing everything in this power to protect him. Given Bouthelier’s closeness to Casado, he was instructed to propose to him that he act as a spy for the rebels. He was emboldened to do so because he knew of the sympathies for the rebel cause of both Casado’s wife María Condado y Condado and his brother César. Casado did not immediately accept the proposal but, significantly, did not report the contact to the Republic’s security service, the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, in order to open an investigation into Bouthelier. César Casado was only one of several pro-Francoist officers that Segismundo was protecting by giving them posts within his general staff. In fact, aware of these contacts, the SIM was already carrying out surveillance of Casado and his family. However, since the Socialist Ángel Pedrero García, the head of the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar in the Army of the Centre, sympathized with Casado, no action seems to have been taken against him.21 (#litres_trial_promo)

One of the members of the Organización Antonio was a major in the army medical corps, Casado’s doctor Diego Medina Garijo. Another was a retired major of the medical corps, Dr Ricardo Bertoloty Ramírez. He was one of the team that had saved Franco’s life in 1916 when he was seriously wounded at El Biutz in Morocco. In 1931, Dr Bertoloty had taken advantage of Azaña’s reforms to leave the army, but he remained a close friend of Franco.22 (#litres_trial_promo) Contacts with pro-rebel sympathizers in the Republican Army were monitored through the Servicio de Información y Policia Militar (SIPM), run within Franco’s general staff by Colonel José Ungría Jiménez. A key figure in the SIPM in close contact with the Organización Antonio was Lieutenant Colonel José Centaño de la Paz, Casado’s adjutant, who belonged to another fifth-column organization called ‘La Ciudad Clandestina’. Centaño was in constant radio contact with Franco’s headquarters in Burgos. In late January 1939, Antonio Luna’s group brought Besteiro and Casado together in order to discuss plans to overthrow Negrín. However, Ángel Pedrero García had already brokered a prior meeting with Besteiro at the end of October 1938, though it is unlikely that they discussed anything as dramatic as an anti-Negrín coup d’état. Not until 5 February did Centaño reveal to Casado his role in the SIPM.23 (#litres_trial_promo)

That the SIPM regarded Casado as potentially useful was hardly surprising. They were aware that, on 8 December 1938, Casado had met the British Chargé d’Affaires Ralph Stevenson in Madrid and discussed with him London’s desire to end the Spanish conflict.24 (#litres_trial_promo) That together with the way in which Casado had run the Army of the Centre must have delighted them. He had imposed rigidly traditional military discipline and completely emasculated the corps of political commissars, which had been created shortly after the conflict began in response to the fact that war had been triggered by a rebellion of professional officers against the constitutional authority of the Republic. The commissariat existed in parallel with the traditional military structure. Commissars were essentially evangelists of the Republican cause. They worked to maintain morale and to explain the political purpose of the war effort, and provided a link between the rank and file, the officers and the Republican government. They held the same rank as the commander of the unit in which they served, even where that unit was the army as a whole. Inevitably, most career officers resented the authority enjoyed by commissars to question major military decisions. By early 1939, as the commissars worked to maintain the spirit of resistance, this resentment intensified in proportion to the growing defeatism of the professional officers, especially so in the case of Casado.25 (#litres_trial_promo)

The consequence was that new conscripts were left with little idea of what they fighting for. This fostered the spread of demoralization and desertions. At the same time, Casado showed no inclination to use his forces in battle, something for which Vicente Rojo would never forgive him. Casado was far from being the only or indeed the most senior defeatist in the Republican ranks. In late November, to take pressure off the retreating Army of the Ebro, Rojo had ordered three diversionary attacks by the armies of the centre-south zone under General Miaja, the commander of the Republican armies of the south and centre. With his chief of staff, General Manuel Matallana Gómez, Miaja was supposed to organize a major offensive westwards into Extremadura and a landing at Motril in Granada. Colonel Casado, commander of the Army of the Centre, was to carry out an advance on the Madrid front at Brunete. All three simply failed to carry out their orders. Many of the officers in the Army of Catalonia were committed Communists like Colonel Antonio Cordón, or had risen through the ranks of the militia like Juan Modesto and Enrique Líster. In contrast, the senior officers of the Army of the Centre were professional officers who had made their careers in Africa. If, like Miaja, they had sought membership of the Communist Party, it was out of convenience rather than conviction.

The various offensives should have begun on 11 December 1938 but were inexplicably delayed until 5 January 1939, by which time the Francoist drive into Catalonia was virtually unstoppable. The lack of commitment by the southern army commanders was seen in Negrín’s immediate circle as the result of ‘treachery, sabotage and defeatism’.26 (#litres_trial_promo) The failure to launch the operations owed much to the fact that the chief of operations of the Army of the Centre, Lieutenant Colonel Francisco García Viñals, was a close collaborator of the SIPM. He did everything possible to ensure that the Republican forces in the centre zone remained inactive.27 (#litres_trial_promo) The landing at Motril never took place. Several commanders, the Communists Enrique Castro Delgado and Juan Modesto Guilloto, the moderate Republican (and anti-Communist) Juan Perea Capulino and the commissar general of the Group of Armies of the Centre (Grupo de Ejércitos Republicanos del Centro), the Communist Jesús Hernández, bitterly criticized Miaja in their respective memoirs. They alleged that Miaja had failed to use the troops at his disposal for the attack in Extremadura, preferring to keep them in defensive positions when he could have exploited the local numerical superiority occasioned by Franco’s concentration on the Catalan campaign.

Hernández denounced Miaja’s delays in launching the Extremadura offensive. Modesto declared that the decision to disobey Rojo’s orders and simply not launch the attack on Motril was an act of sabotage by Miaja, Matallana and the commander of the Republican navy, Rear Admiral Miguel Buiza Fernández-Palacios. He also alleged that Miaja deliberately exhausted and demoralized the troops at his disposal by long route marches of 150 kilometres to north and south: ‘The delay of the offensive in Extremadura, the unnecessary troop movements, a dozen days of forced marches from north to south, from south to north and again from north to south, as well as exasperating and exhausting the soldiers, provoked insecurity, doubts, indignation and discontent among the troops and their officers.’ When on the verge of success, Miaja inexplicably called a halt, failed to to seize the opportunity to attack Cordoba and thus allowed the Francoists to regroup.

The third offensive, on the Madrid front at Brunete, was a disaster and Modesto alleged that Casado had allowed his battle plans to be seen by the Francoists. In fact, Burgos had received the plans from more than one source. Casado had assured his staff that the attack would be a walk-over. It was to be a surprise attack, launched against a weak sector of the rebel front, with considerable logistical superiority. In fact, Casado failed to attack at the point that Rojo had chosen. Instead, he launched the Army of the Centre against a well-fortified – and well-informed – sector and thereby guaranteed the failure of the operation. Edmundo Domínguez Aragonés, the recently appointed commissar inspector of the Army of the Centre, who followed the operation from Casado’s headquarters, was appalled when he went ahead even after it became obvious that the enemy was expecting it. Casado knowingly sent hundreds of men to certain death against positions well defended with banks of machine guns. Modesto dubbed the calamitous Brunete offensive ‘the ante-room to the Casado uprising’, an operation that deliberately set out to weaken the best units of the Republic. Franco’s own staff was in any case fully informed of most of the Republic’s military plans in the last six months of the war.28 (#litres_trial_promo)

The accusations made by Modesto, Castro Delgado, Hernández and Perea were seen to have considerable substance when General Matallana was court-martialled after the Civil War. Before the trial took place, Palmiro Togliatti, the Comintern delegate and the effective leader of the PCE, wrote that, in 1937, Matallana ‘had been suspected of contacts with the enemy but nothing concrete was ever proven’.29 (#litres_trial_promo) In fact, he had many contacts with the Fifth Column, including with the Organización Antonio, confiding in Captain López Palazón his hatred of reds and his distress that the beginning of the war had found him in Republican Madrid. He had also used the funds of the general staff to support pro-Franco officers who were in hiding.30 (#litres_trial_promo) At his trial, Matallana asserted that he had been serving the rebels since early in the war, passing information to the Fifth Column through his brother Alberto about the strength of the International Brigades, the residences of Russian pilots, the location in Albacete where tanks were assembled and the times of the arrival in Cartagena of ships carrying war matériel. Regarding the latter period of the war, he claimed to have sabotaged numerous operations including the Brunete offensive and facilitated rebel operations by failing to send reinforcements. His advice to Miaja was always to stabilize the fronts and to avoid attacks. At his trial, he said that in the archives of the Republican forces there were many projects that he had managed to get postponed indefinitely on different pretexts. He ensured that the various general staffs to which he had belonged never produced battle plans or directives on their own initiative. During the battle of the Ebro, he had placed obstacles in the way of requests for diversionary attacks in the centre zone.

To this end, he said, with the help of his second-in-command Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Garijo Hernández and the head of his own general staff Lieutenant Colonel Félix Muedra Miñón, he controlled the easily manipulated Miaja. By dint of flattery and by encouraging his desire for the limelight, they gained his confidence. They exploited his festering envy of Rojo and fomented rumblings of discontent. Taking advantage of Miaja’s resentments, they managed to delay the fulfilment of orders from Rojo. Matallana later claimed that, to undermine offensives, he ensured that troops were moved by rail instead of with trucks since the railway was slow and had limited capacity. The consequent delays allowed the Francoists to work out the Republican battle plans. Moreover, the removal of trains from civilian use led to the collapse of the food-distribution network and provoked demonstrations by women protesting about lack of food. Negrín was obliged to intervene to guarantee supplies and to reconcile the needs of the capital with military requirements.31 (#litres_trial_promo)

There was a vast distance between the reputation of Miaja as the heroic saviour of Madrid assiduously fabricated by Republican propaganda to boost popular morale and the reality. Miaja was a fairly mediocre soldier who was always averse to taking risks. According to the Francoists Antonio Bouthelier and José López Mora, he was ‘grotesque, sensual and bloated, always completely oblivious to what was going on around him’. Togliatti wrote later of Miaja that he was ‘totally brutalized by drink and drugs’.32 (#litres_trial_promo)

Having received huge deliveries of German and Italian war matériel, Franco was poised for a major assault on Catalonia. Yet, in order to do so, he had left his southern fronts relatively undefended. Herbert Matthews, the extremely well-informed correspondent of the New York Times, who was close to Negrín, wrote later: ‘Naturally, we thought that the Madrid zone would save the day. Miaja, by that time, was approaching a breakdown, from accounts that I received afterwards. He was drinking too much and had lost what nerve he had once possessed. The picture of the loyal, dogged, courageous defender of the Republic – a picture built up from the first days of the siege of Madrid – was a myth. He was weak, unintelligent, unprincipled, and, in that period, his courage could seriously be questioned.’33 (#litres_trial_promo) The reasonable hopes of both Negrín and the head of the army general staff, Vicente Rojo, were to be dashed by the failures, if not outright treachery, of the commanders in the centre zone – Miaja, Matallana and Casado.

The issue was not just the treachery of the high command of the armies of the centre-south zone. There was also the issue of ever greater logistical differentials between the two sides. The superiority of the Francoists in tanks, artillery, air cover, machine guns and even functioning rifles was overwhelming. At the end of January 1939, the President of the Cortes, Diego Martínez Barrio, arranged a meeting between Negrín and President Azaña, who since the 22nd of that month had been established in the castle of Perelada near Figueras. Relations between the two had deteriorated significantly over the last months. Martínez Barrio described them as ‘fire and water’. Azaña disliked Negrín’s dynamism and brutal realism; Negrín saw Azaña as an intellectual wallowing in unrealistic ethical conundrums. Azaña complained to Martínez Barrio: ‘he treats me worse than a servant’. Negrín arrived at the meeting utterly exhausted after two days without sleep. He told the others that thousands of tons of war matériel – tanks, artillery, aircraft, machine guns and ammunition – were on their way across France from Le Havre to Port Bou. In fact, the French government had put every possible obstacle in the way of their transport across the country. If the supplies had arrived two weeks earlier, Negrín claimed, the situation in Catalonia could have been saved. When Martínez Barrio asked him if anything could be done, he replied: ‘I’m afraid not.’ It was decided that Azaña should move to La Bajol, a mere 3 kilometres from the French frontier.34 (#litres_trial_promo) Negrín made a similar point to the standing committee of the Cortes on 31 March 1939 when he claimed that, if this matériel had arrived four months earlier, the Republic could have won the battle of the Ebro and if it had arrived even two months earlier, Catalonia would not have been lost.35 (#litres_trial_promo)

Shortly after his meeting with Azaña on 30 January, Negrín requested from Miaja a report on the military situation in the centre zone. Miaja’s depressing response centred on the collapse of morale and the lack of rations, clothing and usable weaponry, particularly artillery, after the unsuccessful initiatives in Extremadura and Andalusia. In fact, shortly afterwards, Miaja successfully requested the French Consul in Valencia to put a visa on his diplomatic passport that would permit him entry into France or Algiers.36 (#litres_trial_promo) Barcelona suffered sustained bombing raids on 21, 22 and 23 January. The starving population attacked food warehouses but, according to Colonel Juan Perea, commander of the Army of the East, vast quantities of food and equipment were left in the Catalan capital and fell into the hands of the Francoists when they entered the city in the afternoon of 26 January.37 (#litres_trial_promo) The military retreat, now swelled by 450,000 civilians, continued to the French frontier and on to the unhealthy internment camps of France’s windswept southern beaches. Among the Republican authorities that fled before the advancing Francoists, only Negrín and his ministers and the Communists had the courage to return to the remaining Republican territory. There too, from the Republic’s eastern frontier in Badajoz to the Mediterranean coast in Valencia and Murcia, there were shortages of basic necessities and weaponry, intense demoralization and dread of what was seen as inevitable defeat. The loss of Catalonia and the consequent isolation of the central zone provoked widespread fear. This was reflected in bitter divisions between the Communists and other parties and within the Socialist Party.38 (#litres_trial_promo)

3

The Power of Exhaustion (#ud0a7020e-cb44-5acc-a0d8-6b1c10766d55)

As has already been noted, there have been claims that the Communists were plotting to end the war long before the fall of Catalonia.1 (#litres_trial_promo) In fact, as late as 26 January 1939, the Comintern was urging the Communist leadership in Britain, France and the USA to organize demonstrations to push their respective governments into lifting the blockade on arms for Spain and to make arrangements for the accommodation of refugees. The French party was told to recruit volunteers for Spain and to send a delegation to Catalonia to counteract capitulationism in the Republican and Socialist parties. A message was sent via the French urging the Spanish Communists to hold on. Even after news had reached Moscow of the fall of Barcelona, the head of the Communist International, Georgi Dimitrov, stood by his instructions to the Spanish Communists to fight on. On 7 February, Dimitrov sent a further message to the PCE: ‘the course of resistance must be maintained … the front in Levante must be activated; capitulation by the Spanish government must be prevented, through replacing adherents of capitulation in the government with staunch adherents of resistance’. On the same day, he ordered Maurice Thorez, leader of the Parti Communiste Français (PCF), to organize demonstrations to pressurize the French government into permitting the dispatch of the Army of Catalonia back to the central zone. The PCF was instructed to organize the supply of arms and food to Valencia and to look after the welfare and morale of the Spanish refugees in France.2 (#litres_trial_promo)

Meanwhile, in Madrid, all these efforts were undermined by the activities of an ever more active rebel Fifth Column. Its success derived from the ease with which it was able to feed on the growing anti-communism. This was a reflection of the fact that the PCE was totally identified with government policy and therefore held responsible for the widespread hardship in the beleaguered city. The Fifth Column was also able to exploit the bitter resentment of the victims of PCE security policy since late 1936. In their efforts to impose a centralized war effort, the Communists had been ruthless in their suppression of anarchists and Trotskyists who had wanted to pursue a revolutionary line.3 (#litres_trial_promo) Defeatism was rife. The intense anti-Communist hostility from the leadership of the CNT was matched within much of the Socialist Party. Relations between career officers and the Communist hierarchy had cooled. In an effort to improve the situation, at some point in October the leader of the Communist youth movement (Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas, or JSU), Santiago Carrillo, had lunch at Casado’s headquarters. Casado had a reputation as a thoroughly humourless and sour individual, his constant irritability the consequence of the acute stomach pains he suffered as a result of ulcers. Knowing this and fully apprised of the rumours about Casado’s conspiratorial activities, Carrillo was surprised at the lunch by the effusiveness of Casado’s assertion that he shared Negrín’s determination to maintain resistance. Carrillo had been informed that his father, Wenceslao, a life-long friend of Largo Caballero, was actively engaged in seeking support within the PSOE for an anti-Negrín peace initiative. Shortly afterwards, in an acrimonious meeting, Santiago tried in vain to convince his father that such an action would leave tens of thousands of Republicans at the mercy of Francoist terror.4 (#litres_trial_promo)

The isolation of the central zone signified a logistical nightmare. There was no fuel for domestic heating or cooking, and no hot water. Medicines and surgical dressings were in dangerously short supply. The exiguous scale of rations in Madrid was insufficient, according to a report by the Quaker International Commission for the Assistance of Child Refugees, to sustain life for more than two or three months. The standard ration consisted of 2 ounces (55 grams) of lentils, beans or rice with occasional additions of sugar or salted cod. It was said that more than 400 people died of inanition each week in Madrid. A growing food crisis intensified a popular sense that Negrín’s government, located in Barcelona, had simply abandoned the centre to its fate. This was unfair, since the food situation in the Catalan capital was little better. In the central zone, Negrín’s rhetoric of resistance was increasingly out of tune with popular feeling.5 (#litres_trial_promo) In November, when the Francoists bombed Madrid with loaves of fresh white bread, JSU militants denounced this as an insulting gesture and burned the loaves in street bonfires. Álvaro Delgado, a student at the time, told the British historian Ronald Fraser: ‘It came down in sacks with propaganda wrapped round it saying: “This bread is being sent you by your nationalist brothers.” It was beautiful, fine white bread. Some came through a broken skylight at the Fine Arts school, and when no one was around I and other students ate so much we felt sick.’ On the streets, others trampled the bread in a fury. Despite their hunger, people were shouting: ‘Don’t pick it up.’ Even Casado recalled later that women with children launched themselves on to some men who were seen picking up the bread. They then collected the loaves and took them to the Dirección General de Seguridad, the national police headquarters, whence it was transported to the battlefront and handed back to the Francoists.6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Discontent was stoked up by the Fifth Column which talked of the plentiful food in the Francoist-held areas and also of the likely mercy of Franco for those who were not Communists. War-weariness boosted the growth of the Fifth Column. David Jato, a significant Falangist militia leader, told Ronald Fraser: ‘I wouldn’t say we had people inside Casado’s general staff; I’d say the majority of the staff was willing to help us. So many doctors joined that Madrid’s health services were virtually in our hands. The recruiting centres were infiltrated by our men. Even some Communist organizations like Socorro Rojo ended up in fifth column hands.’7 (#litres_trial_promo) The Socorro Rojo Internacional (International Red Aid) was a social welfare body.

In the wake of the Francoist advance through Aragon, dissident elements of the PSOE and the UGT had met with members of the CNT to discuss their discontent with Communist policy as early as April 1938. In mid-November 1938, anti-Negrinista Socialist officials in Alicante, Elche and Novelda and CNT elements in Madrid and Guadalajara had participated in a rehearsal of their efforts to oust Negrín. These initiatives were nipped in the bud by the SIM.8 (#litres_trial_promo) The JSU organizations of Valencia, Alicante, Albacete, Murcia, Jaen and Ciudad Real were in favour of breaking Communist domination of the organization and re-establishing the Socialist Youth Federation (Federación de Juventudes Socialistas, or FJS) as it was before the unification with the Communist youth movement in 1936. The knee-jerk, and futile, response of the JSU secretary general, Santiago Carrillo, was to denounce the dissidents as Trotskyists. His alarm was understandable since JSU members made up a high proportion of the Republican armed forces.9 (#litres_trial_promo)

A combination of the Republic’s worsening situation, the consequent divisions within the Socialist Party and his conversations with Luna García convinced Besteiro that he was far from alone in his anti-communism. Aware of his own popularity, he had reached the conclusion that the time had come to emerge from his self-imposed obscurity in Madrid. At the PSOE executive committee meeting held in Barcelona on 15 November, Besteiro’s speech, which at time strayed into rhetoric indistinguishable from that emanating from the Franco zone, discussed the likely consequences of the Communists being removed from power.

The war has been inspired, directed and fomented by the Communists. If they ceased to intervene, it would be virtually impossible to continue the war. The enemy, having other international support, would find itself in a situation of superiority … I see the situation as follows: if the war were to be won, Spain would be Communist. The rest of the democracies would be against us and we would have only Russia with us. And if we are defeated, the future will be terrible.10 (#litres_trial_promo)

It was a virtuoso performance of pessimism, defeatism and irresponsibility. He had recognized the inevitability of cooperation with the Communists yet had remained aloof, determined to keep his hands clean. Now, he denounced collaboration without offering any alternative other than division, defeat and the tender mercies of General Franco.

The underlying naivety of Besteiro’s words reflected his belief that the PCE, ‘the party of war’, was the only obstacle to peace and reconciliation. Indeed Besteiro would seemingly be coming to believe the Francoist propaganda line that, by handing over the PCE, the Republicans could ‘purify’ themselves and establish a basis for post-war reconciliation ‘between Spaniards’ (although obviously not Spaniards who were Communists). In the course of his speech, Besteiro returned to what had become an obsessional theme, declaring that Negrín was a Communist who had entered the Socialist Party as a Trojan horse. The next day, he reported to Negrín himself what he had said: ‘Before they tell you anything, I want you to hear from me what I said in the executive committee. I regard you as an agent of the Communists.’ He told Azaña and others that Negrín was a ‘Karamazov’, ‘a crazed visionary’ – presumably a reference to the violent sensualist Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. He later gave the British Chargé d’Affaires a bitter account of his meetings with Azaña and Negrín.11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Accordingly, while in Barcelona, Besteiro discussed with Azaña the formation of a government whose principal task would be to seek peace. He told Julián Zugazagoitia, the editor of El Socialista, that ‘we Spaniards are murdering one another in a stupid way, for even more stupid and criminal reasons’.12 (#litres_trial_promo) Deeply concerned about the consequences for the bulk of the population of inevitable Republican defeat, he was ever more hostile to Negrín because he believed him to be unnecessarily prolonging the war. Misplaced rumours about a peace cabinet saw Besteiro subjected to virulent attack by the Communist press.13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Before going to Barcelona, Besteiro had confided his anxieties to Ángel Pedrero García, the head of the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar in the Army of the Centre, and a close collaborator of Colonel Casado. Apparently, Casado had already intimated to Pedrero that he would like to get in touch with Besteiro. Accordingly, in October 1938, when Besteiro had expressed a similar wish, Pedrero arranged a meeting in his own house. Besteiro shared with Casado his conviction that an early peace treaty was necessary and that the military high command should pressure Negrín’s government to negotiate. From this time, there were regular contacts between Casado and General Manuel Matallana Gómez, of the general staff, and Casado’s close collaborator Colonel José López Otero, a general staff officer with anarchist sympathies. They also made tentative efforts to bring Miaja aboard. Their caution was related to Miaja’s membership, formally at least, of the Communist Party. In December, Casado had a meeting with Ralph Stevenson, the British Chargé d’Affaires, in the hope of ascertaining if he could rely on support from London. Casado was also in touch with the diplomats of France and several Latin American countries. Stevenson followed up the meeting by seeking out Besteiro to find out more about the peace plans.14 (#litres_trial_promo)

On his return to Madrid, a deeply disillusioned Besteiro reported his conversations in Barcelona to his acquaintances in the Fifth Column. He was resigned to the fact that Azaña would not be commissioning him to form a peace government and that, even if the President did so, he would be unable to find sufficient political support. However, Antonio Luna García set about persuading him that, if he was unable to fulfil his hopes of forming a peace government with wide political support, he should consider doing so with military backing.

It is astonishing that Besteiro could have been unaware of Franco’s determination to maintain the hatreds of the war long after the end of hostilities. If he was left in doubt after the savage repression unleashed in each of the provinces as they fell, an interview that the Caudillo gave on 7 November 1938 to the vice-president of the United Press, James Miller, should surely have made it clear. Franco declared unequivocally: ‘There will be no mediation. There will be no mediation because the delinquents and their victims cannot live side by side.’ He went on threateningly, ‘We have in our archive more than two million names catalogued with the proofs of their crimes.’15 (#litres_trial_promo) Having dismissed any possibility of an amnesty for the Republicans, he confirmed his commitment to a policy of institutionalized revenge. The mass of political files and documentation captured as each town had fallen to the Nationalists was being gathered in Salamanca. Carefully sifted, it provided the basis for a massive card index of members of political parties, trade unions and masonic lodges which in turn would provide information for a policy of sweeping reprisals.16 (#litres_trial_promo)

That Besteiro had preoccupations other than the fate of defeated Republicans was revealed to Tomás Bilbao Hospitalet, Minister without Portfolio in Negrín’s government. A member of the minor Basque party Acción Nacionalista Vasca, Tomás Bilbao had joined the cabinet in August 1938 to replace Manuel Irujo, who had resigned in solidarity with Artemi Aiguader i Miró of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, who had himself resigned in protest at the limits imposed on the powers of the Catalan regional government, the Generalitat. Contrary to expectations, Bilbao had shown himself to be a shrewd and loyal member of Negrín’s team.17 (#litres_trial_promo) In late 1938, he visited first Casado and then Besteiro, whom he found irritated and harshly critical of the government for not having pursued the peace policies that he had recommended. Bilbao informed Negrín of his fear that Besteiro, in conjunction with Casado, might do something dangerous. Negrín was sufficiently confident about Casado not to take the warnings seriously.18 (#litres_trial_promo)

However, as things got worse for the Republican cause, both Casado and Besteiro were readying themselves for action. With the knowledge of Luna García’s group, the two met on 25 January 1939, just as Franco’s forces were on the point of entering Barcelona. The next day, Lieutenant Colonel Centaño sent a message to Burgos: ‘Besteiro is beginning to work with Casado and everything is under our control.’ At the end of January, Ungría’s SIPM had instructed Julio Palacios of the Organización Antonio to inform Casado of the guarantees offered by the Caudillo to those professional army officers who laid down their arms and did not have common crimes on their conscience. The text had been transmitted orally to Palacios and then written up to be passed on to Casado. The wording contrasted starkly with many of Franco’s public declarations, but the concessions seemingly offered to senior officers would have been attractive to Casado personally since he would soon reveal his intention of leaving Spain after the war.

For senior and other officers who voluntarily lay down their arms, without having been responsible for the deaths of comrades or guilty of other crimes, in addition to their lives being spared, there will be greater benevolence according to how important or effective are the services that they render to the Cause of Spain in these last moments or how insignificant and without malice has been their role in the war. Those who surrender their weapons and thereby prevent pointless sacrifices and are not guilty of murders or other serious crimes will be able to obtain a safe-conduct that will enable them to leave our territory and, in the meanwhile, enjoy total personal safety. Simply having served on the red side or having been active in political groups opposed to the National Movement will not be considered reason for criminal charges.

The message was passed from Palacios to Ricardo Bertoloty, who in turn passed it to Casado’s personal physician and close friend, Diego Medina. When Casado expressed doubts that these ‘guarantees’ really came from Franco, it was arranged that Radio Nacional would broadcast a coded message drafted by Casado himself. Not entirely convinced, Casado replied on 1 February, ‘Understood, agreed and the sooner it is broadcast the better.’ He demanded a further guarantee in the form of a letter from his friend Fernando Barrón y Ortiz, one of Franco’s most trusted generals. Casado also told Medina that it was his fervent hope ‘to end the war with a magnificent deed that would astound the world, without the loss of a single life or the firing of a single bullet’. The requested letter from Barrón would eventually reach Casado on 15 February.19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Unaware of the extent of Casado’s contacts with Burgos, on 2 February, encouraged by the clandestine organization of the Falange, Besteiro had again used his acquaintance with Ángel Pedrero to request an urgent interview with Casado. When they met at Besteiro’s house, Casado told him about his by now much more advanced plans for peace which were moving towards the idea of a coup d’état. According to reports received in Burgos from the Fifth Column, the two remained in close contact throughout February.20 (#litres_trial_promo)

An inadvertent but crucial step towards the Casado coup had been Negrín’s declaration of martial law on 23 January 1939 as Franco’s forces approached Barcelona. No previous Republican government had wished to take this step both because it would put an end to democratic liberties and because of lingering suspicion of military loyalties.21 (#litres_trial_promo) It was a desperate, perhaps inevitable and certainly fatal initiative, aimed at forcibly uniting all forces within the centre-south zone under military authority. The decree handed power to the military – and specifically to General Miaja, chief of the centre-south army group, and to General Matallana, chief of his general staff, both of whom hoped for an early end to the war. It downgraded the authority of civil governors, handing their authority over censorship and the holding of public meetings to the military governors in each province.

According to Vicente Uribe, ‘the majority of [the military governors] were real fossils who had demonstrated their inability to command and to make war. The upshot was that a measure introduced to strengthen the fight against the enemy and reinforce discipline among civilians was used by these fossils against the Communists in particular, by putting obstacles in the way of our activities and our work.’22 (#litres_trial_promo) It thus facilitated Casado’s conspiracy. There were many other features of the situation which encouraged Casado. After the fall of Barcelona, the Republic’s senior authorities had joined the exodus to the French frontier. Neither President Azaña nor General Vicente Rojo, chief of staff and effectively commander-in-chief of the Republican armed forces, returned to Spanish territory. Indeed, after the fall of Barcelona, the Communists had noted a change in the attitude of General Rojo. In a manuscript written as a contribution to the official Communist Party history of the war, Vicente Uribe asserted: ‘in the last days of the campaign in Catalonia, he no longer showed any confidence in the cause of the Republic nor any desire to continue the fight’.23 (#litres_trial_promo) Negrín, on the other hand, would do both.

In the wake of the Francoist promises, Casado had lunch in Valencia with Generals Matallana, Miaja and Leopoldo Menéndez (commander of the Army of the Levante). The exact date is not known but it was probably on 2 or 3 February, certainly before Negrín returned from France. Nor is it known if it was before or after Casado’s meeting with Besteiro. In his later account, Casado claimed that he and the three generals had agreed that, in the event of Negrín returning to the central zone, they would create a National Defence Junta (Consejo Nacional de Defensa) to overthrow the Prime Minister. ‘The three generals, without argument, regarded themselves as committed to this course of action, with all its consequences.’ However, Miaja’s secretary, his nephew Lieutenant Fernando Rodríguez Miaja, who was present at the lunch at his uncle’s residence, gives a very different account. The four main protagonists were accompanied by their adjutants and there were twelve people around the table.

What became obvious during the meal was Colonel Casado’s profound discontent with Dr Negrín, against whom he let loose a stream of insults. He ate nothing and drank only milk because the gastric ulcer which exacerbated his evil temper, already bitter and disagreeable by nature, had worsened in recent weeks. Obviously, in front of that audience, even though it was quite small, he did not reveal any intention of organizing a coup against the government … The other guests also expressed their dissatisfaction with the way the war was being run but not in the extremely violent terms used by Casado.24 (#litres_trial_promo)

In Negrín’s continued absence at the French–Catalan border, Casado was increasingly indiscreet about his determination to bring an end to the war. This was revealed at a meeting held in the afternoon and evening of either 7 or 8 February at Los Llanos in Albacete, the headquarters of the air force in the centre-south zone. The property of the Marqués de Larios, Los Llanos was a country house previously used as a hunting lodge but converted into a hospital for wounded airmen. The estate surrounding the house was used as an aerodrome.25 (#litres_trial_promo) The proceedings of this gathering can be reconstructed thanks to a memoir by José Manuel Vidal Zapater, at the time a young airman who was charged with taking the minutes. The meeting was convened by Jesús Hernández in his capacity as commissar general of the Group of Armies of the Centre and was an attempt to get the top brass in the central zone to commit to continued resistance. Among the approximately ten senior officers present were Casado, Matallana, Miaja, Colonels Domingo Moriones Larraga and Antonio Escobar 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 (#litres_trial_promo)

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 (#litres_trial_promo) 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 (#litres_trial_promo) 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 (#litres_trial_promo)

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 (#litres_trial_promo)

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 (#litres_trial_promo) 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 (#litres_trial_promo)

When Pascua received the news of the President’s imminent arrival, he was appalled. He thought, and told Azaña, that his presence in Paris would cause immense damage to the Republic, effectively announcing to the British and French authorities that he considered the war lost and thereby undermining the basis of Negrín’s policy of using the rhetoric of resistance as a negotiating card. Pascua was soon irritated by what he described as Azaña’s carefree routine of ‘la dolce far niente’. It consisted largely of a daily touristic excursion around Paris in an Embassy car accompanied by his inseparable friend and brother-in-law Cipriano Rivas Cherif followed by an evening gathering (tertulia) with his friends in the French capital. Resentful of what they believed to be a betrayal of the Republic, the domestic staff of the Paris Embassy even refused to serve him.33 (#litres_trial_promo) In fact, Azaña was more concerned with the preservation of the artistic treasures of the Prado than with the impact of his decision to flee. He had said to Álvarez del Vayo: ‘A hundred years from now, few people will know who Franco or I were but everyone will always know who Velázquez and Goya are.’34 (#litres_trial_promo) He was also concerned to go on collecting his salary.35 (#litres_trial_promo)

The tensions deriving from Azaña’s presence in Paris were exacerbated by the closeness of his relationship with Cipriano Rivas Cherif. Rivas Cherif was regarded as a frivolous lightweight by Pascua, by Álvarez del Vayo and by Negrín. He had made damaging mistakes as Consul in Geneva and, merely to please Azaña, he had been given the virtually meaningless title of Introductor de Embajadores, effectively head of protocol for the President. However, in Paris, he was Azaña’s liaison with the Quai d’Orsay and behaved as if he was at the service of the French government rather than the Spanish Republic. To the French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet he parroted Azaña’s view that the Republic was finished and that the rhetoric of resistance by Negrín and Álvarez del Vayo was merely a device to gain time. His conversations with Bonnet convinced the French that the Spanish government was adrift and in conflict with the exiled head of state who, unlike Negrín and Del Vayo, had the good sense to see that the only answer was an immediate peace settlement.36 (#litres_trial_promo)

Negrín knew that the war was effectively lost, but he was not prepared simply to walk away. As he told the standing committee of the Cortes on 31 March 1939: ‘The Government, in the first few days after reaching Figueras, after leaving Barcelona, realized that we were facing a real catastrophe, a catastrophe infinitely bigger than the catastrophe that we have suffered with the retreat of the civilian population and the army. It was fully aware that there was very little chance of saving the situation, but the Government knew that it was its duty to look for a way, if there was one.’37 (#litres_trial_promo) When Negrín said ‘the Government’, he was referring to himself.

On the morning of Sunday 5 February, Azaña achieved the exile he had longed for. He described the pathetic manner of his entry into France some months later in a letter to his friend Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo. He and his entourage left at dawn in a small convoy of police cars. As a courtesy, Negrín accompanied them across the frontier. The President of the Cortes, Diego Martínez Barrio, travelled ahead in a separate car. This vehicle broke down. Negrín and others in the party tried unsuccessfully to push it out of the way. The party was obliged to cross the hazardously icy border on foot, thereby fulfilling a gloomy prophecy made by Azaña at the beginning of the Civil War. He had said to his wife, Dolores Rivas Cherif: ‘We will end up leaving Spain on foot.’38 (#litres_trial_promo) When taking his leave, before walking back into Spain, Negrín kissed the hand of Dolores Rivas and said: ‘Until we meet again soon in Madrid.’39 (#litres_trial_promo)

As Julián Zugazagoitia commented, Negrín and Azaña were incompatible, the one energetic, dynamic and fearless; the other sedentary and timorous. By this stage ‘They felt mutual contempt. At that moment, they hated each other.’ On his return to Spain, Negrín remarked to Zugazagoitia: ‘You have to feel sorry for poor Azaña! He is fearfulness incarnate. His fear gives him a greenish-yellow colour and makes him look like a decomposing corpse.’ As he was approaching the frontier, Negrín encountered Lluís Companys, the Catalan President, José Antonio Aguire, the Basque President, and Manuel Irujo, who had been Minister of Justice in his own government. They had proposed accompanying Azaña into France, but he had refused their offer because to have crossed together would have implied that they were on the same level. They now offered to go back into Spain with Negrín, but he politely declined, allegedly muttering to himself, ‘That’s one less thing to worry about.’40 (#litres_trial_promo)

The cabinet had been installed in the castle of Figueras on a hill overlooking the town. With a drawbridge, thick outer and inner walls, it seemed impregnable but was an entirely inappropriate location for a government. According to the British Chargé d’Affaires, Ralph Stevenson, it was:

a large fortress-like barracks on the outskirts of the town. At the best of times, it must have been an uncomfortable place, cold, dank and dirty. But with the débris of the Spanish Government heaped into it pell-mell it was an unforgettable sight. Luckily the weather was bad and there was no great likelihood of aerial bombardment for the place was a veritable death-trap, with only one narrow road, serving for both ingress and egress, along certain stretches of which only one vehicle could pass at a time.41 (#litres_trial_promo)

When the weather permitted, the town was subject to frequent rebel bombing raids. Around the courtyard, various ministries were installed in rooms with the words ‘foreign ministry’, ‘ministry of the interior’, ‘cabinet office’ and so on roughly chalked on the wall next to the door. The town square, where the office of press and propaganda had been installed in a requisitioned house, was heaving with refugees. There was little by way of furniture and even less food for the staff. In the words of Herbert Matthews, ‘It was a madhouse of bewildered officials and soldiers, struggling desperately, not only with their own work, but with those thousands of swarming refugees who filled every house and doorway and covered almost every inch of the streets where men, women and children slept through the bitterly cold nights with almost no food and certainly no place to go.’42 (#litres_trial_promo) Negrín worked ceaselessly to try to limit the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the defeat in Catalonia and to keep alive the idea of resistance as the best way to achieve a peace settlement that would prevent a vengeful mass slaughter at the hands of the Francoists. To this end, he maintained ‘the mask of resistance come what may’. With a colossal weight on his shoulders, he tried to conceal his exhaustion and despair from his ministerial colleagues. Zugazagoitia related that ‘one evening, he appeared in the castle, exhausted, almost unable to breathe. He asked if we had anything to eat, sat down at the table and, on the verge of tears, was plunged into a crisis of melancholy.’43 (#litres_trial_promo)

Negrín spoke to the last meeting of the Republican Cortes held in the stables of the castle at midnight on 1 February. It was so cold that many of the deputies sat in overcoats. According to the correspondent of the London Daily Herald who was present:

Empty chairs were stacked along the walls. Over 106 failed to answer the toll call: many of them were in France, others were holding the dispirited troops together, others had already fallen into Franco’s hands. Four times during the session the unshaded swaying lights registered the bombardment which was hitting the town. Negrín, immaculate in a brown suit, was so calm he might have been addressing his students in the quiet prewar days of Madrid.

In his exhaustion, he had to pause frequently to gather breath.44 (#litres_trial_promo)

In the dark, echoing stone chamber, the proceedings appeared to Zugazagoitia like ‘an intimate religious ceremony celebrated by a persecuted sect’. Negrín was, in many senses, virtually alone, deserted by many, supported by a small group of faithful friends. Yet he assumed the responsibility of fighting on, of doing the best for the Republican population that faced defeat and the ‘mercy’ of Franco. Bone-tired, he delivered his speech with what Zugazagoitia termed ‘unutterable anguish’. The main burden of his words was the need for international mediation to secure guarantees that there would be no reprisals at the end of the war. He presented a plan to bring the war to an end in return for Franco observing certain conditions, the principal one being that there should be no bloodbath. He suggested that the exodus of 450,000 refugees after the fall of Barcelona constituted a plebiscite against the Francoist invaders.45 (#litres_trial_promo) The assembled deputies gave Negrín a unanimous vote of confidence, although, as they left, there were embittered mutterings against the Communists. All the deputies went into France, some to seek ways of returning to the central zone, others to stay and secure their own safety. Among those who stayed in France, especially the anarchists and the Socialist supporters of Largo Caballero, there were absurd accusations that Negrín and the Communists were responsible for the defeat of the Republic. As Zugazagoitia commented, they reflected a desire to avoid recognizing the real causes of Republican defeat.46 (#litres_trial_promo)

According to Herbert Matthews, ‘No one could call it an oratorical masterpiece: it was disjointed, and badly delivered, by a man so exhausted that he could hardly stand, yet it should take its place with the great documents of Spanish history.’47 (#litres_trial_promo) In contrast, for Stevenson, Negrín’s speech ‘did not carry as much conviction as was usual with his pronouncements. He spoke valiantly about continued resistance and ultimate triumph, but his words came from his lips and not from his heart.’ The following day, Stevenson and his military attaché had an hour-long meeting with Negrín and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Julio Álvarez del Vayo, ‘in a dark, meagrely furnished room’. Stevenson reported to London that ‘Dr Negrín appeared to be as combative as ever. He showed at times flashes of humour, when his face would light up. At other times, it would set in savage determination. He was obviously very tired. He reiterated to me his fixed intention to resist as long as possible in Catalonia and thereafter, if necessary.’ Negrín stated that a victory for Franco would be disastrous for the democratic powers, which Stevenson countered by saying this had been duly considered in both London and Paris. They then moved on to discussion of the three points that Negrín regarded as the sine qua non of any peace treaty – that Spain would be independent, that the Spanish people would be free to choose their own form of government and that there would be no reprisals. Negrín said that if these were guaranteed the Republican forces would lay down their arms. In his view, the request for these guarantees had to come jointly from the British, French and United States governments, since to request them himself would be disastrous for the Republic. Stevenson merely asked permission to forward this point to London.48 (#litres_trial_promo)

On the same morning, the French Ambassador, Jules Henry, had also gone to Figueras and urged surrender on Negrín, who refused categorically. Henry described the encounter in Figueras to Georges Bonnet: ‘it is there that Negrín hides like a tiger trapped in the last refuge of the jungle, and it is from there that he hopes to direct what could be the last act of the Spanish tragedy … Negrín with a smile on his lips has assured me once more of his confidence in the final success of the cause that he defends … This time I am not convinced.’49 (#litres_trial_promo) In fact, with Franco about to gain control of the entire frontier between Spain and France, it was absolutely essential for Paris to have some sort of diplomatic relations with him. To this end, the government had already sent the Senator Léon Bérard to Burgos to negotiate arrangements for the return to Spain of the refugees already on French territory and of those expected to arrive, as well as for formal representation at Franco’s headquarters. Although the French government was anxious to send an ambassador to Franco, it could not do so as long as Negrín remained in power since it could not have two Spanish ambassadors in Paris. In the meantime, until formal diplomatic relations were established, Paris hoped to establish some sort of representation at Franco’s headquarters similar to that constituted by the British diplomatic agent Sir Robert Hodgson. The fear was that Franco under Italian pressure would refuse and insist on having a fully fledged ambassador.50 (#litres_trial_promo) This being the case, it was hardly likely that Negrín could expect much support from Paris. Indeed, when Bérard met Franco’s Foreign Minister, the Conde de Jordana, he broached the subject of a guarantee of no reprisals as a prerequisite of recognition of Franco’s government. Jordana told him brusquely: ‘The Generalísimo has amply demonstrated his humanitarian feelings but at this moment the only possibility is the unconditional surrender of the enemy which must trust in his generosity and that of his Government.’51 (#litres_trial_promo)

Two days after his meeting with Negrín, Ralph Stevenson received ‘a secret and personal message’ from President Azaña stating that ‘he was at complete variance with Dr Negrín’s policy of continued resistance. He claimed that his efforts to contact the French Ambassador had been blocked by Negrín. Stevenson immediately informed Jules Henry, who visited Azaña later the same afternoon. The President’s message to both diplomats was that their two countries should press Negrín’s government to seek an immediate cessation of hostilities. If Negrín did not accede to pressure from the two governments, Azaña told both ambassadors, it was his intention to resign as President.52 (#litres_trial_promo)

The British and French governments meanwhile decided to press Negrín to agree to the cessation of hostilities ‘on the understanding that General Franco would guarantee the peaceful occupation of the remainder of the country with no political reprisals and the removal of foreign troops from Spain’. In the afternoon of 6 February, Stevenson and Henry met Álvarez del Vayo at Le Perthus. They informed him that the British and French governments were seeking guarantees from Franco and asked if the Republican government would agree to a cessation of hostilities if they were forthcoming. Since there was no response from Franco, Álvarez del Vayo could undertake only to discuss the matter with Negrín. The next day, Negrín received the British and French representatives at the house in the village of La Vajol where he was staying. He conceded that defeat in Catalonia could not be avoided but expressed his view that a European war was inevitable and that resistance could be sustained in the centre-south zone of the Republic. In this regard, he hoped that the equipment being taken into France by the retreating Republican forces could be repatriated. In fact, Georges Bonnet had already informed Franco’s envoy in Paris, José María Quiñones de León, that his government would not permit the return of Spanish Republican troops and equipment to the centre-south zone.53 (#litres_trial_promo) Unaware of this, Negrín repeated to the British and French diplomats that he would agree to a cessation of hostilities if Franco made a declaration accepting his three conditions of Spanish independence, free elections and no reprisals. To this third point, he added that he wanted an undertaking that at-risk Republican political and military leaders could be evacuated from the centre-south zone under international supervision. It was agreed that this message would be passed on to London and Paris.

After the meeting, Stevenson met with the US Counsellor, Walter Thurston, who commented that Franco would almost certainly reject the demand for Spaniards to be able to choose their own destiny and probably the other two conditions as well. Stevenson replied that the key point was that Negrín had offered capitulation and since the offer had been made, ‘the working out of terms will be a mere formality’. This suggested that the British, like the French, were not likely to be overly concerned about ensuring that Franco would not carry out reprisals. The American Ambassador Claude Bowers believed that ‘Negrin’s purpose is to force a formal official rejection of the terms for the sake of the record or their acceptance’. Bonnet discussed Henry’s report with the US Ambassador in Paris, William Bullitt, on 8 February and said that the British were transmitting Negrín’s terms to Franco, adding that he thought Franco would reject them and propose unconditional surrender.54 (#litres_trial_promo)

The British and French response, Negrín reported later, was that ‘it was impossible to reach a satisfactory agreement with the so-called Burgos government because totalitarian governments do not understand humanitarian sentiments nor are they interested in pacification or magnanimity and, what is more, the rebels had claimed that they would only punish common crimes’. To this, Negrín’s understandable reaction was: ‘In a war like ours, a pitiless and savage civil war, either all crimes are common crimes or none are.’ Accordingly, he offered himself as an expiatory victim, letting it be known through the British and French representatives that he would hand himself over if Franco would accept his symbolic execution in exchange for the lives of the mass of innocent Republican civilians. He did not reveal this offer to the majority of his own cabinet. Zugazagoitia knew about it, but Negrín did not make it public until after the Second World War.55 (#litres_trial_promo)

Negrín commented to Vidarte after the session: ‘People want peace! Me too. But wanting peace is not the same as facilitating defeat. As long as I am prime minister, I will not accept the unconditional surrender of our glorious army, nor a deal that might save several hundred of the most at-risk individuals but allow them to shoot half a million Spaniards. Rather than that, I would shoot myself.’56 (#litres_trial_promo) Negrín’s offer to hand himself over as the sacrificial scapegoat was ignored by Franco. The government remained in Spain at the Castillo de Figueras until the last units of the Republican army had crossed the frontier on 9 February.

The situation was summed up succinctly by the correspondent of The Times of London, Lawrence Fernsworth. A conservative and Roman Catholic, he sympathized with the plight of the defeated Republicans. He wrote: ‘At all points where the Pyrenees here slanted away toward the sea, fleeing hordes of Spaniards, each one the embodiment of an individual tragedy, spilled over the mountainous borders, immense avalanches of human debris.’ Negrín planned to hold out, as Fernsworth put it, to ‘protect the escape from Madrid of thousands who would otherwise fall victims of Franco’s reprisals’. Casado opposed Negrín by launching the falsehood that resistance was merely a cover for the establishment of a Communist dictatorship.57 (#litres_trial_promo) This notion obviously was already axiomatic for the Francoists, but it also appealed to the anarchists and Socialists who had resented the arrogance and harshness of Communist policies during the war. Assuming, as Casado and the anarchists did, that the PCE was a puppet of the Kremlin, a Communist dictatorship in Spain would have made little sense. Nothing could have been less in accord with the USSR’s needs throughout both 1938 and 1939. In 1938, Soviet priorities were for collective security via alliance with France and Britain against Nazi Germany. After the Munich Agreement, the USSR – now moving towards the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 – was not prepared to alienate Hitler.58 (#litres_trial_promo)

On the night of 8 February, one of the few colleagues who remained in Spain with Negrín, his friend Dr Rafael Méndez, said to Álvarez del Vayo: ‘I have no idea what we are doing here. I rather fear that tonight we’ll be awakened by the rifle-butts of the Carlist requetés [militia].’ Hearing this, Negrín called Méndez aside and said: ‘We won’t leave here until the last soldier has crossed the frontier.’59 (#litres_trial_promo) Yet again at the forefront of his mind was the determination to see these Republicans safe from the reprisals of Franco. The Carlists, an extreme right-wing monarchist faction, had shown elsewhere that they were all too ready to carry out mass executions. As Negrín wrote later to Prieto: ‘From the last house on the Spanish side of the frontier which the rebels occupied an hour later, I stood for eighteen hours watching the file of the last forces that were retreating into France. I managed not to lose my head, and simply by dint of doing my duty, it was possible to save those half a million Spaniards who are now awaiting our help.’60 (#litres_trial_promo)

Only after General Rojo had arrived to announce that the final Republican troops in Catalonia had crossed the frontier on the morning of 9 February did Negrín enter France. His most loyal ministers wept. At the Spanish Consulate in Perpignan, an improvised cabinet meeting was held. Negrín announced that he would travel on to Toulouse and from there fly to Spain. Some ministers thought that he was mad, but as he himself later explained: ‘If I hadn’t done that then, today I would die of shame; I probably would not have been able to survive my disgust with myself. Was the Government going to leave those still fighting in the Central zone without leadership or support? Was it the Government of Resistance that would flee and surrender them?’61 (#litres_trial_promo)

Shortly after Negrín had reached Perpignan on Thursday 9 February, an emissary from General Miaja reached the Spanish Consulate. Captain Antonio López Fernández, Miaja’s fiercely anti-Communist secretary, came with the mission of persuading Negrín to remain in France and for President Azaña to grant Miaja permission to negotiate peace with the rebels. Prior to leaving Alicante on the plane for Toulouse, he had telephoned General Rojo, who had asked him to come to the Spanish Embassy in Paris to meet both himself and Azaña on 10 February. On reaching the Consulate in Perpignan late on Thursday evening, Captain López was received by Negrín, Álvarez del Vayo and the Minister of Finance, Francisco Méndez Aspe. He gave them a detailed report on the situation in the central zone, the thrust of which was that there was no possibility of further resistance and that the only possible solution was to entrust Miaja with the task of negotiating surrender on the best terms possible. Negrín listened in silence until López concluded with the words: ‘Prime Minister, at this moment, the Centre-South zone is like an aircraft in flight whose engines have stopped. The salvation of those on board depends on the skill of the pilot. In the view of all the senior officers in the zone, that pilot is General Miaja.’ When Negrín asked what was needed for resistance to continue, López replied: ‘There is no possibility of resisting; there are no weapons, no food, no fuel and our armament is so worn out, with no possibility of replacement or repair, that to oblige the Army to resist is self-evidently senseless and criminal.’ When Álvarez del Vayo pressed him further, López replied that resistance would be possible only if huge deliveries of arms and aircraft could arrive immediately. Negrín told López that he would consider his report and that, the next morning, he and Vayo would go to the central zone and discuss future prospects with Miaja.62 (#litres_trial_promo)

López then went to Paris and had a meeting with Azaña and Generals Rojo and Hernández Saravia and Lieutenant Colonel Enrique Jurado. There he found a more receptive audience for his pessimistic report. He asked Azaña to return to the central zone to oblige Negrín to resign and to give constitutional legitimacy to negotiations with the Francoists. López’s message from Miaja was as hopelessly naive as the beliefs of Casado. It echoed the conclusions of the lunch shared by Miaja a week before with Casado, Matallana and Menéndez in Valencia. He told the President that it was necessary to form a government of professional soldiers who would be able to secure a reasonable peace treaty with Franco. Azaña allegedly replied: ‘I have decided to wash my hands of the problems of Spain. Whisper to General Miaja that he should do whatever he thinks best and what he considers to be his duty as a soldier and a Spaniard.’ Rojo then gave López letters for Miaja, Matallana and Negrín. López later claimed implausibly that the letter to Negrín urged him to resign and leave Spain while those to Miaja and Matalla instructed them to execute Negrín if he refused to leave. No such letters have been found subsequently.63 (#litres_trial_promo)

According to Vicente Uribe, ‘The majority of the Ministers had no desire to go to Madrid, morale was extremely low. No one dared say no and preparations to leave were made in accordance with Negrín’s orders.’ Negrín issued instructions to the soldiers and civilians who had accompanied him, some to return to the centre-south zone and others to remain in France to deal with the refugees and other issues regarding the evacuation. From Toulouse, he flew that night to Alicante, arriving on the morning of the next day. He was accompanied by Julio Álvarez del Vayo, his Foreign Minister, and Santiago Garcés Arroyo, the head of the Republic’s security apparatus, the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar. They flew under assumed names, paying their passage on a scheduled Air France flight.64 (#litres_trial_promo)

Before leaving, Negrín and Méndez Aspe had a meeting with Trifón Gómez, the quartermaster general of the Republican army. Gómez claimed later that they had discussed the question of food supplies for the centre zone. Negrín allegedly told him to continue sending food but to be careful not to build up stocks. Méndez Aspe allegedly went even further, saying that the war would probably last only another couple of weeks, and that, if there were enough supplies for that time, he was opposed to Gómez sending more. General Rojo made a similar point in his memoir of the period: ‘The supply services in the other zone were being dismantled: nothing could be sent, neither men, nor arms, nor matériel, nor munitions, nor raw materials; on the other hand, the political authorities were concentrating on bringing things to an end.’65 (#litres_trial_promo)

Assuming this to be true, it shows two things: first, that Negrín was returning to make peace and thus using the rhetoric of resistance as a bargaining chip and, second, that he and Méndez Aspe wanted to conserve resources for the inevitable exodus and subsequent exile. After overseeing the passage of the last Republican troops over the French frontier, Zugazagoitia remembered Negrín saying: ‘Let’s see if we can do the second part. That’s going to be more difficult.’ Zugazagoitia went on: ‘We were bringing things to an end and when he contemplated returning to the Centre-South zone, Negrín had only one thing on his mind, the end, with as little damage as possible, of a war that was lost.’ This coincides with the testimony of Negrín’s secretary Benigno Rodríguez, to whom he said that he was returning to Spain ‘to save as much as we can’.66 (#litres_trial_promo)

4

The Quest for an Honourable Peace (#ud0a7020e-cb44-5acc-a0d8-6b1c10766d55)

It was assumed by many of the politicians, army officers and functionaries who had crossed into France in early February 1939 that the government would not be returning to Spain. Even some cabinet ministers had their doubts. In cafés where exiles gathered and even in a meeting of senior members of the CNT, there was much venomous gossip about Negrín ranging from blaming him for the fall of Catalonia to accusing him of abandoning the Republic.1 (#litres_trial_promo) Of course, Negrín did no such thing but went back in the hope of being able to negotiate a reasonable settlement. He arrived totally exhausted and drained emotionally and physically. Since becoming Prime Minister nearly two years earlier, the stress that he endured had increased exponentially. As well as exercising the basic duties of president of the council of ministers, he had continued to work hard to build on his achievements as Minister of Finance in ensuring the Republic’s economic survival. In April 1938, he had also become Minister of Defence with an intensely active involvement in the role. Throughout, he had carried out a notable diplomatic effort in a vain quest for international mediation to bring the war to an end without reprisals on the part of the Francoists. In addition, he had to deal with the petty squabbles and more than petty jealousies both within the wider coalition of Republican entities, the Popular Front, and within the Socialist Party. Inevitably, all of this took its toll. Just before midnight on Saturday 28 January, Azaña met Rojo and Negrín to discuss the situation in the wake of the loss of Barcelona. Azaña was shocked to see the ‘utter dejection’ of a Negrín who was ‘beaten and on his knees’. After the fall of Catalonia, and the Prime Minister’s long vigil at the frontier, his closest collaborators were alarmed at the visible deterioration in a man of once boundless energies.2 (#litres_trial_promo)

The full horror of the defeat in Catalonia, the subsequent exodus and the suffering of those condemned to the makeshift camps in southern France was never fully reported in the centre-south zone. Nevertheless, there was no shortage of rumours, together with some reliable information and considerable exaggeration. It all fed the fears of the already exhausted, starving and demoralized population. The sense that a similar fate awaited them led to a widespread hope that someone in authority would appeal to the other side for a negotiated peace. For some at least, in the eloquent phrase of Ángel Bahamonde, ‘The psychology of defeat led to an acceptance of blame, the confession of sin and the payment of repentance, sieved through the imagined forgiveness of our brothers on the other side.’3 (#litres_trial_promo) In fact, many hundreds of thousands of Republicans expected nothing of ‘brothers on the other side’. They knew only too well what Franco’s clemency and justice meant. They were those who would flee en masse to the coast at the end of March 1939 in the vain hope of evacuation. Yet they too longed for an end to the war. In fact, for two reasons, there would be virtually no more fighting in the centre zone. On the one hand, Franco needed time to reorganize his forces after the titanic effort involved in the Catalan campaign. On the other, he had confidence that the treachery of Casado, Matallana and other pro-rebel officers would bring down the Republic without further military effort on his part.

Palmiro Togliatti, the senior Comintern representative in Spain, later reported to Moscow on the situation after the loss of Catalonia: ‘The great majority of political and military leaders had lost all confidence in the possibility of continued resistance. There was a general conviction that the army of the central zone could not repel an enemy attack because of their overwhelming numerical superiority and because of our lack of weaponry, aircraft and transport, and its organic weakness.’ Many professional officers, including the Communist ones, with the sole exception of Francisco Ciutat, believed that prolonged resistance was impossible. Colonel Antonio Cordón, the under-secretary of the Ministry of Defence, the recently promoted General Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros, the chief of the air force, and Colonel Carlos Núñez Maza, the under-secretary of air, all career officers but also members of the Communist Party, told Togliatti ‘openly’ that they did not believe resistance was possible in the centre zone unless the men and weapons taken into France could be returned to Spain. In his report to Moscow, Togliatti wrote: ‘I also believe that the conviction that further resistance was impossible was also quite widespread among the officers who had risen from the ranks of the militia. The same belief was also unanimous among the cadres of the Anarchists and of the Republican and Socialist parties, and in the police and state apparatus. Accordingly, the problem was no longer how to organize resistance, but how to end the war “with honour and dignity”.’ There were divergent opinions on how to do this. However, the one point on which there was widespread agreement was that the Communists were the ‘sole obstacle’ to ending the war. By smearing the Communists as ‘the enemies of peace’, the defeatists had found a way of channelling the war-weariness and fear of the masses. Togliatti saw this slogan as the ‘cement’ that united the disparate elements of the non-Communist left. At least retrospectively, he believed that Negrín himself had ‘no faith in the possibility of further resistance’.4 (#litres_trial_promo)

The most visceral hostility to the Republican government was to be found in the anarchist movement. This derived in part from the bitter resentment of many anarchists about the way in which the libertarian desire for a revolutionary war had been crushed in the first half of 1937 in the interests of a more realistic centralized war effort. However, the anarchists had also been on the receiving end of extremely harsh treatment by the Communist-dominated security services because of the ease with which the CNT–FAI could be infiltrated by the Fifth Column. The Republican press, Communist, Socialist and Left Republican, frequently published accusations about Fifth Column networks that functioned on the basis of using CNT membership cards.5 (#litres_trial_promo) The crack security units known as the Brigadas Especiales were focused on the detention, interrogation and, sometimes, elimination of suspicious elements. This meant not only Francoists but also members of the Madrid CNT. The Communist José Cazorla, who in December 1936 succeeded Santiago Carrillo as the Counsellor for Public Order in the Junta de Defensa de Madrid, believed the CNT to be out of control and infiltrated by agents provocateurs of the Fifth Column.6 (#litres_trial_promo) The Communist press demanded strong measures against these uncontrolled elements and those who protected them, calling for the annihilation of the agents provocateurs who were described as ‘new dynamiters’, a term intended to invoke echoes of anarchist terrorists of earlier times.7 (#litres_trial_promo) The presence of Fifth Columnists was perhaps to be expected in an officer corps of the armed forces largely made up of career officers who sympathized with their erstwhile comrades of the other side. However, infiltration of one-time militia units could also be found. Cazorla investigated Fifth Columnist infiltration of the ineffective secret services (Servicios Secretos de Guerra) run in the Ministry of Defence by the CNT’s Manuel Salgado Moreira. Shortly before the dissolution of the Junta de Defensa by Largo Caballero, on 14 April 1937, José Cazorla announced that an important spy-ring in the Republican Army had been dismantled. Among those arrested was Alfonso López de Letona, a Fifth Columnist who had reached a high rank in the general staff of the 14th Division of the People’s Army, commanded by the anarchist Cipriano Mera. López de Letona had become a senior member of Manuel Salgado’s staff on the basis of a recommendation by Mera’s chief of staff, Antonio Verardini Díez de Ferreti.8 (#litres_trial_promo)

The belief that the anarchist movement was infested with Fifth Columnists was not confined to the Communists. Largo Caballero told PSOE executive committee member Juan-Simeón Vidarte that ‘the FAI has been infiltrated by so many agents provocateurs and police informers that it is impossible to have dealings with them’. That view was shared by the Socialist Director General de Seguridad, Largo Caballero’s friend Wenceslao Carrillo. One of José García Pradas’s collaborators in the CNT–FAI newspaper Frente Libertario was the prominent Fifth Columnist Antonio Bouthelier España, who also held the position of secretary to Manuel Salgado.9 (#litres_trial_promo) The easy acquisition of CNT membership cards provided the Fifth Column with access to information, an instrument for acts of provocation and relative ease of movement. Once equipped with CNT accreditation, Fifth Columnists could also get identity cards for the Republican security services.10 (#litres_trial_promo)

While Negrín was still in Catalonia, the anarchist movement initiated contacts with the generals who were also being sounded out by Casado. On 1 February 1939 the secretaries of the three principal anarchist organizations, the CNT, the FAI and the anarchist youth movement, the Federación de Juventudes Libertarias, jointly sent an obsequious letter to General Miaja. They suggested that they create for him an organization uniting all anti-fascist forces in the centre-south zone, insinuating that it exclude the Communists. Over the next three days, the anarchists held meetings with Miaja, Matallana and Menéndez. Since all three generals were already conspiring with Casado, it is reasonable to suppose that areas of mutual interest were sketched out. According to the anarchist chronicler José Peirats, in the meeting with the anarchists Miaja declared that the Communists intended to impose a one-party government led by Vicente Uribe. There was no truth in the claim – it merely reflected what Casado had told Miaja earlier on the same day.11 (#litres_trial_promo)

In the wake of these anarchist initiatives, three senior figures of the libertarian movement of the centre-south zone were sent on a mission to try to secure a coordinated response of the CNT and FAI to the deteriorating military situation. Juan López Sánchez, who had been Minister of Commerce in the government of Largo Caballero, Manuel Amil, secretary of the CNT’s Federación Nacional del Transporte, and Eduardo Val Bescós, seen as the most powerful figure in the anarchist movement in Madrid, had left for Catalonia in the early morning of Sunday 5 February, ten days after the Francoist capture of Barcelona. Their purpose was to make contact with the CNT’s National Committee to discuss the situation after the expected loss of Catalonia. Their aircraft, unable to land in Catalonia, where Figueras was about to fall, took them to Toulouse. In contrast to the silent Val, the tall and brawny Manuel Amil was a loquacious raconteur. They were trapped in France for several days, visiting the consulates in Toulouse and Perpignan in search of the CNT’s National Committee before finding the CNT headquarters set up in Paris. What they learned and their subsequent reports would play a significant part in the anarchists’ participation in the Casado coup. Throughout the delegation’s sojourn in France, Val’s main contribution had been to mutter imprecations against Negrín.12 (#litres_trial_promo)

On 8 February, they took part in a meeting in Paris with senior members of the CNT, including Juan García Oliver, the head of the National Committee Mariano Vázquez and the minister Segundo Blanco. García Oliver said that it was necessary to remove Negrín and form a government to bring the war to an end. Val then shocked the group by declaring that he had proof that Negrín was not planning resistance but meant to end the war. He then persuaded them that it was not the moment to think in terms of surrendering. His optimistic view of the possibilities of lengthy resistance did not prevail. However, since the main objection to Negrín was, bizarrely, that he was defeatist, the group finally agreed that it was necessary to remove him and form a government capable of resisting long enough to achieve an acceptable peace settlement. The general consensus was that ‘the more resistance we are capable of mounting, the better the peace conditions we can secure’. Ignoring the military reality, Mariano Vázquez declared simplistically, ‘Whoever can strike hard is in a position to make themselves feared.’ They then had immense problems getting back to the centre-south zone, which they finally managed to do in the early hours of the morning of Monday 20 February.13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Underlying the anarchist initiatives was both a visceral anti-communism and a belief that Negrín was incapable of continuing the war effort. In fact, Negrín harboured vain hopes that, after the collapse of the Catalan front, it would be possible to secure the return to Spain both of the evacuated army and of the equipment that they had taken over the border. He had also believed that the supplies from friendly nations, especially the Soviet Union, that had accumulated in France could be delivered to the central-southern zone. Given his commitment to holding out until a peace settlement could be made that would secure the evacuation of those at risk, these hopes sustained his rhetorical commitment to the possibility of continuing the war. While the anarchists simply did not want to believe him, his rhetoric also exposed him to the criticism of many, most notably Azaña and Rojo.14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Just before the fall of Catalonia, the internationally famous journalist Martha Gellhorn wrote a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt,

I find myself thinking about Negrín all the time. I suppose he will fly to Madrid when it is ended in Catalonia and carry on there. Negrín is a really great man, I believe (and he can’t stop being now), and it’s so strange and moving to think of that man who surely never wanted to be prime minister of anything being pushed by events and history into a position which he has heroically filled, doing better all the time, all the time being finer against greater odds. He used to be a brilliant gay lazy man with strong beliefs and perhaps too much sense of humour. He was it seems never afraid and loved his friends and his ideas about Spain and drinking and eating and just being alive. Now he has grown all the time until you get an impression he’s made of some special indestructible kind of stone: he has a twenty hour working day and in Spain you get the idea that he manages alone, that with his two hands every mornng he puts every single thing into place and brings order. Of course, he cannot hold a front. I hope he gets to Madrid. If they are going to be defeated, I still hope they don’t surrender.15 (#litres_trial_promo)

In contrast, some months after the end of the war, Rojo produced a devastating criticism of Negrín:

It would appear that the view that we should continue a policy of resistance was imposed in the hope that it might provoke a change in the international situation. The same hope that had sustained our sacrifices but now without any basis. What do sacrifices matter! Resistance! A sublime formula for heroism when it is nurtured by hope and sustained by an ideal; but when the will that flies the banner of that ideal collapses and hope becomes a denial of reality, then resistance is no longer an heroic military battle-cry but an absurdity. What were we to resist with? Why were we going to resist? Two questions for which no one had a positive answer.

Rojo’s diatribe reflected the distress caused him by the plight of the exiles, but, safe in France, he failed to take into consideration the appalling consequences of a swift unconditional surrender. He followed up his comments on the futility of continued resistance with a disturbing rhetorical question: