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Spain's struggle Tor freedom
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KANSAS CITY, MO. PUBLIC LIBRARY
SPAIN'S
Struggle for Freedom
Lawrence Fernsworth
Beacon Press Beacon Hill Boston
To
Lawrence Junior
and to
Jeannie
with the light brown hair
who at age five
encouraged me
with her abiding interest,
her lively comments
and merry laughter.
*957 by Lawrence Ferns worth.
Library of Congress catalog card number: 57-12744.
Printed in the United States of America.
Contents
Introduction
I. Spanish Kaleidoscope i
1. Blazing the Trail i
2. A Republic Is Born 1 1
II. The Early Roots (First and Second Phases) 22
3. Spaniards Live in Two Spanish Worlds 22
4. The Individualism of Spaniards 32
5. Spain Was a Western Arabia 41
6. The World of Don Quixote Lives On 58
7. The Soil of Spanish Democracy Is Deep 69
III. Hapsburgs and Bourbons: Short Outline of Spanish
History Under the Monarchies (Third and Fourth
Phases) 77
8. Repression of Democracy by the Monarchies: Third
Phase 77
9. The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 92
10. The Carlist Wars Begin 113
IV. Second Republic: Gallant Adventure (Fifth Phase) 129
11. Provisional Government and New Constitution 129
12. Attempt to Destroy the Republic from Within 153
13. The Republican Forces Ride to Victory Again 176
14. Prelude to Chaos 187
15. Two Years of War End in Defeat 213
V. Transition (Sixth Phase) 240
1 6. The Civil War's Aftermath 240
17. Franco and World War II: The Big Lie 244
18. "Protector of Arabs": A Frustrated Dream 253
19. Education: "Down With Intelligence!" 262
20. The State and Religion 278
21. The United States Pacts with the Dictatorship 301
22. The Future of Spain
Bibliography 361
Index * o 365
Lawrence Fernsworth lived and worked in Spain
for ten years as a regular correspondent of The Times
of London and a special representative of the New York
Times. His articles have appeared in numerous British
and American publications, including The Fortnightly,
Foreign Affairs, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the
National Geographic, the Christian Century, and others.
A native of Portland, Oregon, Mr. Fernsworth began his
journalistic career as a reporter and later as a newspaper
publisher in Oregon. At present he is a member of the
correspondents' corps in Washington, B.C. Mr. Ferns-
worth is a Nieman Fellow emeritus of Harvard University.
Introduction
The purpose of this book is to outline the story of the
Spanish people's struggle for freedom from the earlier days
of their nation's formation to the latest phase of their strug-
gle and to bring these periods into relation with one an-
other; to examine the factors that are capable of helping
them to escape from the dead end of dictatorship and to
return to the struggle again,* to meet the pressing inquiries
of the many persons who are perplexed by the riddle of
Spain and are anxious to get a factual report on the sub-
ject. An important port of the scheme of this book is a brief
outline of the four centuries of Spanish rule under the
monarchy the dynasties ^of^the Hapsburgs and the Bour-
bons^ which havFlucE a vital bearing on the subsequent
trend of events from the end of the monarchy, through the
period of the second Republic and the present-day Franco
dictatorship. The story of Spain's struggle for freedom is
presented in six phases from its early roots in the municipal,
or communal, regimes which began in pre-Roman times, to
the present dictatorship under a triple partnership of state,
church and army. This is regarded as the sixth phase, a
phase of transition toward a more durable era of freedom
which must inevitably come.
Spaniards know in their hearts that another day of
battle will come. They know this whether they are Span-
iards in exile in France or in other parts of Europe, in South
American countries, in Mexico or whether, within their own
country, they are nursing their strength while awaiting their
day of deliverance. Their common thought has been well
expressed by one of them in Mexican exile:
One day you will rise again,
Life will once more rest lightly upon you,
You will recover the use of your limbs,
You will march smiling again through a world
Which your blood has redeemed.
v
vi Introduction
To non-Spaniards Spain is a perpetual riddle. They
are constantly asking questions about it and usually getting
unsatisfactory answers. They want to know what goes on in
there inside struggling Spain.
What is Spain really like from the standpoint of its
culture, its political movements and the various kinds of
governments under which it has lived in the past two or three
generations?
What is the truth about Spanish people and why do
they act as they do?
What is there about Spanish history that sets the be-
havior pattern for Spain as a nation?
Is it true that Spaniards are incapable of governing
themselves?
What have been the roles of the monarchy, the army,
the church, in the social and political pictures?
Why did Spaniards throw out the King and will a king
ever come back?
Why did the Republic collapse? What mistakes did it
make? Did it really collapse because its leaders did not
know how to govern, as is so frequently said?
Is it true that the Republic was headed for Communism
and that Franco stepped in at the right time to ward off that
catastrophe?
Why has Spain so often reverted to dictatorship even
under the King?
Are all Spaniards cruel? Why is there so much illiter-
acy? Why so much poverty? Are Spaniards generally ignor-
ant?
What are the forces that keep Spaniards erupting in
mass movements and constantly marching on toward better
horizons despite all their setbacks?
These and many similar questions are the kind that
non-Spaniards, especially the English-speaking ones, are con-
stantly asking about Spain.
In my attempt to give the answers I have drawn on
my personal experiences during a period of nearly ten years
as a press correspondent, mostly as the representative of the
Introduction vii
London Times and as a special reporter for its namesake in
New York. They were years of intensive observation and
study; of mingling with all sorts of Spaniards and finding
out how ran their thinking; of being often in the thick of
dramatic and tragic events. With this preparation, my in-
terest in Spain never has lagged. There is much more to
the story of what has been happening in Spain since the
Republic than has appeared in the press, whose correspond-
ents live under the shadow of a menacing censorship which
rewards any attempt at truthful reporting with expulsion.
This background and this continuing observation and in-
terest, with the fruit of that interest, constitute the informa-
tional basis of this book.
Spain's struggle for freedom is an epic of unfaltering
courage on the part of an unbeatable people. It is a struggle
that began in the dim distant days when Phoenician, Greek
and Roman first touched Spanish shores, and that for a full
twenty centuries has held its strength against the dark forces
that forever are trying to intercept mankind's march toward
brighter horizons. Zeus chaining Prometheus to a rock for
his crime of giving man fire was the prototype of these
forces of darkness, as Prometheus was the prototype of man-
kind's struggle for liberation.
Spain and her people played a Promethean role in giv-
ing hope some centuries ago to a half-barbarous Europe, and
in giving light to European culture. It is seldom remem-
bered that their struggle for freedom is the oldest thing of
its kind in Europe. Though they have often been obliged
to retreat, they have never surrendered. The words of an
admonishing chorus in the play of Aeschylus has application
to them:
For deeds like these Zeus holds you guilty,
And tortures you with never ease from pain.
With Prometheus they seem defiantly to reply that the
dark forces which hold them enchained "will never break the
harmony of God."
vlii Introduction
A people in the end whether Spaniard or another
breaks its chains and marches onward as the Lord of history
intended they should.
The capacity of Spaniards to travel along the roads
of democracy has been aptly expressed by one of the word's
foremost authorities on the history and science of govern-
ment, Professor Charles Mcllwain of Harvard (one of this
writer's mentors). Professor Mcllwain epitomized this histori-
cal talent of Spaniards when he wrote in the Cambridge
Medieval History: "Both the ideas and institutions of popu-
lar government in Spain go back to the commencement of the
thirteenth century. They antedate anything of that kind in
Europe."
Professor J. B. Trend, head of the Spanish Department
at Cambridge University, who loved to browse about Spain
during the odd moments stolen from his scholastic duties,
wrote in one of his books about Spain: "It is seldom re-
membered that democratic government began, not in Eng-
land, but in Spain/' Professor Trend also pointed out that
the principle that the King could not take action against
the person or property of any of his subjects, except by
process of law, "had been stated in Spain before it was
incorporated in the Magna Carta/'
Part One SPANISH KALEIDOSCOPE
i Blazing the Trail
In the spring of 1930 one of Spain's elder statesmen,
a liberal-minded supporter of monarchy, in a public speech
shook an admonitory finger at Ms King. Don Jos Sinchez
Guerra, a patriarchal figure with flowing beard, had been
one of the bitterest critics of the existing military dictator-
ship. But mounting public resentment was causing the dic-
tatorship to feel no longer sure of itself. After seven harsh
and repressive years the dictatorship of General Miguel
Primo de Rivera was swaying uncertainly. The theme of
Sdnchez Guerra's discourse, beamed to the ear of the King,
was: "Get rid of it now or prepare for the consequences."
The country had been prepared in advance for the
speech and all Spaniards listened. In those days few dared
to speak boldly few except this prophetical patriarch who,
despite his arraignment of the policy of Alfonso XIII, was
still loyal to his King.
The King had abdicated his powers to the generals^ Don
Jose said. Instead of being their chief general, he said,
Alfonso took orders from them. He had surrounded himself
by a palace guard of generals, said .the .statesman, .and was
no longer in touch with his people. He was like a silkworm
in its cocoon, closed in from the world.
So spoke Don Jos in a speech addressed to the country
and meant for the King.
The expression 'The King has hidden himself In a
cocoon like a silkworm" was caught up by the public. IB
whatever town of Spain you went after that speech you
heard it repeated.
2 Spanish Kaleidoscope
I was then exploring Spain's political situation along
Spain's southeastern shores and had been for several days
in Alicante. The local newspaper, El Dia, a broadsheet of
four pages, printed the speech in full. In one of the cafes
facing the palm-flanked paseo that skirted the Mediterranean
beach I heard it being read to the customers. Some sat at
the edge of a circular shelf built around a warm stove in the
center of the room. Others had pulled up their chairs. All
listened intently while one of the more instruido among
them "instructed/' that is read the speech. These im-
promptu sessions of combination reading-hour and forum
are to be found in many parts of Spain. Many who have not
learned to read go there to hear the news read to them, to
hear it explained and to join in the discussion that follows.
The fact that many Spaniards do not know how to read
does not prove they are ignorant. They do not waste time
on racing forms or Hollywood gossip.
"Eso es!" they agreed. "It's the truth. El rey has be-
come a silkworm inside a cocoon!"
The people had many grievances against the King; the
chief one was that he had allowed the generals to take
over the government and to rule Spaniards by military dic-
tatorship during seven long years. They resented the fact
that, in 1923, it had required no more than a telephone
call from a general in. Barcelona to the King in Madrid to
obtain what amounted to the King's abdication of powers
if not of his crown. He still kept his court and called him-
self King. The people resented the strong-arm methods of
the dictatorship, and the repressions and cruelties that go with
that kind of rule. They were bitter over the disastrous war
in Spanish Morocco which had uselessly cost the lives of
many young men and had ended in ruthless massacre at the
hands of the Arabs. "The generals wanted the war for their
own glorification/' the people protested. "The King allowed
the generals to do as they liked aiid did not consult the will
of the nation."
To Spaniards "the will of the nation" is extremely
important in matters of government.
Blazing the Trail 3
Even before Sanchez Guerra's speech the King had
thought of his own safety in face of the mounting hostility
and had found it opportune to get rid of Primo de Rivera
- only to replace him with another general. Alfonso did
not dispose of Primo in a forthright manner by telling him
it was time to go, for the good of the country. He found
an excuse for accusing the dictator of some impropriety
the man who had committed so many of them with Alfonso's
blessing! So in January Primo de Rivera had slunk off to
Paris in disgrace, there to die very soon.
Another general, Damaso Berenguer, was commissioned
to set up a somewhat more moderate dictatorship intended
to appease the mounting anger. Everyone understood that
it was to serve as a transitory regime looking to national
elections. The other generals did not look kindly on it.
The forces that in the past century have aligned them-
selves against human freedom in Spain are outstandingly
three: the throne, the political generals and the political
church. The rise of the generals is relatively new and was
brought about by certain events of the past century begin-
ning with the Napoleonic invasion. The alliance between
the throne and the political church is centuries old. In
Spain it is known as "trono y altar/' that is, throne and altar.
The political nature of the alliance is stressed by the fact
that "throne/* in the expression, is placed before "altar."
The throne has always insisted that the church be under its
thumb, as the present dictatorship also insists, although the
church would prefer it the other way round.
The events just related, which within twelve months or
so had their sequel in the fall of the monarchy, illustrate
the partnership between the throne and the military groups.
A little later something will be seen of the partnership be-
tween throne and altar, and then we shall see how all three
work together. Filling in the gaps of this triple alliance are
such forces as the nobility and the other privileged classes,
the monarchists, all kinds of reactionaries in fact, a small
world of elite, that is, of self-supposed superior people.
4 Spanish Kaleidoscope
Notwithstanding changing events this pattern remains. The
dictator still claims to sit on a throne in a monarchy that
lacks only a king. There is no king to depose Franco as
there was to depose Primo de Rivera.
The Political Generals
It is an ironical twist of Spanish history that the insti-
tution o Spain's political generals emerged from a liberating
movement. In 1808 Spain's King had been lured to France
by the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte who saw to it that he
stayed there as his "guest." Napoleon's brother Joseph
Pepe Botellas or Bottle Joe to the Spaniards had invaded
Spain with an army lent him by his big brother, and sat on
the throne. As a result, the country was catapulted into a
people's war the like of which had never been seen. Up to
then the generals were rather autonomous war lords, nobles
with their own armies at the King's service. But the King
was gone and now the majority of them became popular
leaders of whom some fought with a singular valiance, others
with colossal ineptitude. Following the system with which
they were familiar, they paid little attention to controlling
authority. And they began to taste the sweetness of political
power.
Some became popular idols. They were entrusted with
more power than ordinarily is a general's portion. Bitter
rivalries ensued between general anfl general. They set them-
selves up as political arbiters. When, after some years, the
French had been driven from Spain and the King returned
who had so cravenly succumbed to the wiles of Napoleon
Fernando VII his title the generals had become political
personages.
The King was no friend of the people who had offered
their lives for him and had so warmly welcomed his return.
He was the worst king, the most craven and consummate and
treacherous tyrant that Spain ever had seen. Before entering
Madrid he conspired to murder the civilian leaders who had
saved Spain and who now merely asked him to live up to the
Blazing the Trail 5
Constitution which he was sworn to uphold. He entered
Madrid to the outcries of a massacre. The memory of this
and what followed sank deeply into Spanish souls and was
one of the chief factors that led to the Spanish people's
strong feeling that kings were superfluous.
There ensued a familiar pattern of cleavage between
the throne and the people. The generals took sides. Some
stood with the King and plotted with him. Others stood
with the people. Before the conflict had run its course the
institution of political generals was fastened on Spain.
Gradually, in the years that ensued, the divergencies of
generals in opposing or espousing popular causes became
mere struggles for personal power. Few, if any, had states-
manlike qualities or thought of the good of the country.
Seldom did a general espouse a popular cause because he was
liberal at heart. He did so because he had calculated his
chances of rising to personal power as against rival generals
who had ascended to power by espousing reaction. The
Spanish people were quick to divine the motives of generals
who posed as their friends. They knew that the generals
would instantly desert them if they could profit by treachery.
The word "general" became synonymous with ambition,
opportunism and treachery. There were exceptions of
course.
In time the generals closed ranks and made common
cause in defense of their special interests. They surrounded
the throne, allied themselves with the political church, cast
their lot with the whole tribe of elite. They began to look
upon themselves as "the saviors of the state.** In this role
they pushed themselves forward as the King's privy counse-
lors, working in secret with him. They became Spain's poli-
tical arbiters. Their junta militar, or military clique, became
a state within a state, the real seat of power in which were
pooled the interests of the throne and the altar along with
their own. Of this stripe were the political generals who in
1923 set up the dictatorship that led to the fall of the
monarchy seven years later, and who, in 1936, made war on
the liberal Spanish Republic.
6 Spanish Kaleidoscope
After the Republic's fall the generals, Franco at their
head, nursed dreams of making Spain a great military em-
pire, their eyes set on North Africa, on the seizure of
Gibraltar, on Mediterranean predominance. When consider-
ations of security caused the United States government to
find it convenient to have a military foothold in Spain, with
air and sea bases, the generals jumped at the opportunity
offered by American strategic planning.
The "bases agreements" entered into between the
United States government and the Franco dictatorship in
September, 1953, were a great blow to Spaniards still dream-
ing of help from the West in their struggle for freedom.
How such Spaniards felt about it was expressed by the
eminent Spanish historian and diplomat, Salvador de
Madariaga, living in England where he is held in high es-
teem as a scholar, who wrote in a letter to the New York
Times published on September 13, 1953:
It [the pact] means that the people of the United States will for
a very long time have lost the good will of the people of Spain. The
government of the United States will not be signing agreements with
Spain, but with a dictator whose power rests on no authority, but
only on brute force. . . . The Spanish nation will not forget the in-
sult implied in enlisting her without her say,* nor the indifference to
her interests implied in handing dollars to a corrupt dictatorship. . . .
The man with whom the United States is dealing is at war with Spain.
He goes about encased in steel, with a square of heavily armed guards
which neither King Alfonso nor even Primo de Rivera ever needed. . . .
When the regime falls, as fall it must, the nation will refuse to ac-
knowledge herself bound by an acquiescence given when she was
gagged.
Throne and Altar
The concept of throne and altar is the legacy o the
vanished empire of Rome. Spain was the last bulwark of
that crumbling twin realm. The concept of Caesarism,
whereunder church and state buttressed each other, con-
tinued strongly in Spain until the eighth-century Moorish
invasion, and it revived after the Moorish expulsion.
Blazing the Trail 7
All during this time the tradition of state and church,
which the Emperor Constantine had initiated to prop up a
declining empire, continued with vigor. It persisted in the
confederation of European states known as the Holy Roman
Empire, whose sixteenth-century Emperor Charles V of Aus-
tria, of the Hapsburg line, had earlier acquired the Spanish
crown and gone there as Spain's first absolute ruler. He
gave new life and form to the already existing tradition of
trono y altar. Under Spain's ensuing line of Hapsburgs and
Bourbons this tradition persisted as nowhere else in the
world. The Spanish Republic strove vainly to break it. The
rupture was healed with a vengeance after the Franco re-
gime seized power.
How the monarchy built up the interlocking activities
of state and religion is illustrated by the case of the priest
Juan Pardo de Tabera who, in 1501, being rector of the
University of Salamanca, was made a bishop and rose rapidly
to high ecclesiastical and political dignity. Charles made him
Oidor, or judge and assessor of the Council of the Inquisi-
tion. He presided over the Council of Toledo in 1525.
Charles caused his election to the cardinalate in 1531.
As such he became above all a political figure. Charles
called him "the staff of my kingdom," made him General
Inquisitor of the realm, and at the same time Governor of
Castile and Leon. He was the King's first adviser. He be-
came President of the Council of Castile and presided over
the Cortes at Toledo. Such were the political functions per-
formed by one of the church's high dignitaries. The case of
Juan Pardo de Tabera had numerous later parallels. The
tradition thus accentuated lived on.
One has only to read the history of clmrch-and-state
relationships all over Europe up to the advent of Protestant-
ism, and in many instances thereafter, to see how the church
pressed its political claims in all states of Europe. It pre-
sumed to annul laws and to depose kings and emperors.
Christian rulers and the Papacy were often at war with each
other. Charles V sacked Rome and imprisoned the Pope in
8 Spanish Kaleidoscope
order to bring that gentleman to his way o thinking. So
doing he began the Spanish tradition that throne came before
altar.
But one must not overlook the distinction between the
spiritual and the political church, in considering the role
played by the official religion in shaping Spain's social and
political destinies. If the church has produced heresy hunters
and zealots of which it still has examples in Spain, it has also
produced men with strongly marked spiritual qualities. But
the sad fact is that the spiritual and the political church
are so intertwined that it is impossible to draw a sharp dis-
tinction between them.
Dante, whom the church today reveres as a great Catho-
lic poet, understood this well when he censured the church
for assuming the "double burden" of religious and political
authority. As he, put it in the Purgatorio^ Canto XVI:
. . . The church of Rome
Confounding in itself two governments,
Falls in the mire and soils itself and burden.
One of the tasks of Spain's absolute kings in the throne-
and-altar partnership was to seal Spain off hermetically from
the liberal culture which knocked at its portals from the other
side of the Pyrenees; also to discourage such culture wherever
it set foot in Spain. Above all they set themselves to the
task of warding off the "contamination" of Protestantism with
its note of democracy which it introduced both into govern-
ment and religion for instance, the right of man to choose
and act for himself in matters of conscience.
While the democratic idea was being recognized almost
universally in the Christian world, in Spain man's claim to
think and act for himself continued to be set down as a crime
against both God and the state. Even as of today under the
dictatorship Spain is the citadel of a church holding to a
theory of religion plus state that can only exist so long as
men's minds are enthralled.
In the face of this situation the majority of Spaniards,
while remaining within the fold of the church, think out
and live a religion of their own making. There is a saying
Blazing the Trail g
in Spain that "even the atheist is a Catholic/' This may not
be so absurd as it sounds, for the Catholic religion, however
much Spaniards may dissent from it, is part of their culture.
The attitude of so many Spaniards toward religion was
expressed to me by Angelo, my camarero at a hotel in
Valencia during the Civil War. Here are his words as I re-
corded them in my notebook:
"There are no Catholics in Spain. That is all exteriori-
zation. The politicians claim to be Catholics because that
is a political asset. The only religion is that of Jesus Christ
love and help one another. The Christians here say it but
don't do it. I would like a religion to be a reality not only
talk, but a reality. In Spain there is only the purchase and
sale of consciences not Catholicism/'
Bitter words on the part of a man who, while still re-
maining within the fold of the church, insisted on his right
to do his own thinking. There are many Angelos in Spain.
In 1851 a concordat or treaty between Spain and the
Vatican had set forth the terms of partnership between
church and state. While the Republic repudiated the
church-and-state partnership, it respected the terms of the
treaty insofar as they established the legitimate rights of the
church within an order of state and church separation. On
August 27, 1953, a new concordat was ratified between the
Vatican and the Franco dictatorship. It was an extraordi-
nary document which, even when compared with the con-
cordat it abrogated, set back the clock.
Under its terms the hierarchy and other churchly dig-
nitaries become primarily political figures, the picked crea-
tures, when not puppets, of the regime. The Spanish govern-
ment, that is, the dictatorship, nominates six candidates for
appointment to an episcopal vacancy; of these the Vatican
eliminates three and returns the other three names as accept-
able. From among these three the regime chooses the bishop.
Since the concordat created a number of new bishoprics, the
dictatorship has the advantage of a small flock of new
ecclesiastical cohorts.
This privilege extended to Franco is the extension of
io Spanish Kaleidoscope
"the privilege of presentation" which Charles V wrested
from Pope Adrian VI. Spanish kings have consistently used
the privilege to keep out of the episcopacy and the cathedral
chapters priests whose views were not easily amenable. How
some Spaniards look on this arrangement is shown by the
remarks of the moderate Socialist leader and former War
Minister, Indalecio Prieto:
"That the creator of the Blue Division [which went to
aid the Germans in World War II] should name bishops is
as absurd as for the Holy Father to name Spanish Generals.
The Holy Father has been called the White Pope in con-
tradistinction to the Black Pope of the Jesuits. Now we have
the Blue Pope as well." (An allusion to the Falange's Blue
Shirts.)
(In another chapter there well be a more detailed dis-
cussion of the concordat.)
Another aspect of church life in Spain must be stated
in fairness, namely, the cordial relations between some of
the humbler orders of friars, and some of the humbler
priests, and the people.
There is a long-standing hostility between the church
and the masses of Spain which periodically has taken the
form of the burning of churches. Such outbursts have oc-
curred at various times in the past century and in this one,
for the most part under the monarchy. The phenomenon,
so shocking to outside osbervers but less shocking to Span-
iards, will be dealt with in a later chapter. The outbursts
are explained by the conviction of the people at crucial
moments that the church has been acting against them;
the episodes are evidence of the people's deep-rooted exas-
peration with the church's opposition to what they consider
their interests.
An Old Stereotype
The theme that "Spaniards are unfit to govern them-
selves" is but one of a whole litany of stereotypes and hand-
me-down arguments leveled at Spaniards by the groups whose
A Republic Is Born 11
interests He In placing roadblocks in the way of Spaniards
marching toward freedom. We are told that only by some
form of absolutism can Spaniards be "salvaged from chaos/'
And we hear that "Republican governments are incapable
of maintaining law and order/' It is also a theme of the
Spanish elite that "the common people of Spain are a slave
stock and deserve only to be treated as slaves/' This is said
of the proudest people in Europe. Unfortunately such state-
ments are all too frequently passed along to earnestly inquir-
ing minds which accept them as newly found light on the
perplexing question of Spaniards. Such self-serving state-
ments have no vestige of truth, as will be seen farther along.
If the revolutionary and periodic turbulence of Span-
iards Is often cited against them, it should be remembered
that this turbulent spirit, with its revolutionary connotation,
had its counterpart in every country in Europe in the not
distant past, as it also had in the American colonies. Between
Spain and its European neighbors there is a time lag of two
or three centuries. The revolutionary turbulence which
has so long spent itself elsewhere may be expected to appear
from time to time with more or less explosiveness until Spain
has caught up with the rest of the world and achieved some
form of acceptable and stabilized government.
2 A Republic Is Born
The generals did not look benevolently on the arrange-
ment of January, 1930, whereby a benevolent caretaker
government was set up under one of their number, Damaso
Berenguer, until a more stable and presumably more repre-
sentative government could be established. But events were
moving too fast for the generals. The underground Re-
publican groups were coming out into the open, were hold-
ing conferences, demanding elections. At San Sebastiin a
12 Spanish Kaleidoscope
meeting was held between the country's Republican leaders
and the proponents of Basque and Catalan autonomy at
which it was agreed that when a new Republic was born it
would support the restoration of the historic regional self-
rule to these areas, and that these regions would in turn
support the Republic.
In December it is still 1930 two young officers in the
garrison stationed at Jaca, in northern Aragon near the
Pyrenees, began agitating a Republican movement. There
was considerable Republican sentiment among the younger
officers in the army notwithstanding the generals. One morn-
ing these two officers, Captains Fermin Galan and Angel
Garcia Hernandez, led their troops out on parade and pro-
claimed the Republic. The action was not only premature,
but it was doubly offensive to the generals who considered
the privilege of uttering pronunciamientos reserved to them-
selves.
The captains led their troops out on the march in the
hope of rallying the neighboring towns to the Republican
cause. The generals sent other troops out to resist them and
captured Galan and Garcia. Swiftly the King insisted on their
execution against the advice of his more astute non-military
counselors. But the generals told him, "An example is
needed." And this is what in turn the King said to his more
moderate counselors. The word got out through the country,
"The King executed the Republican captains because he
said an example was needed/' Strange as it may seem, Span-
iards who are capable of such tragic moments of violence
and bloodshed are singularly moved by public executions
performed with premeditation. In this instance they were
so much more moved by the fact that the crime for which
the captains were executed was that of having espoused the
popular cause. The King could have committed no greater,
no more irretrievable, blunder than this.
The people took up the refrain: "An example is
needed!" "Out with the King Afuera el rey!"
The King, notwithstanding the generals, could no longer
ignore the advice that elections be held. The pressure on
A Republic Is Born 15
all sides was strong. And so elections were ordered. But it
soon was clear that they were to be manipulated in the old
corrupt manner. Voting lists would be scratched so that
only the right kind of names appeared on them. Strong-arm
methods would be used at the polls. They would not be
much different from the strong-arm methods sometimes seen
in New York, Chicago or Jersey City except that instead of
armed gangsters the strong-arm groups would be the Civil
Guard and the official police.
In the face of this situation the Republican groups
called a strike. They bluntly told the King that they would
refuse to participate in the elections until they had guaran-
tees that they would be honestly conducted. The King and
his military advisers were once more obliged to retreat.
Berenguer announced that the elections would be "rabiosa-
mente sincere" rabidly sincere. The conditions were
changed so that the Republicans were satisfied that the
voters would have a reasonable chance of expressing their
wishes. Among other things, all parties would be allowed
to have "interventors" that is, watchers at the polls to see
that everything was in order. These interventors had an un-
usual and vital function not common at elections elsewhere.
There were no official ballots for the voters to check. But
interventors representing the parties had in hand slips of
paper, something like three by four inches, on which were
printed the party slate. In this case one slate represented all
the Republican groups. The voter took the slips from the
various interventors, selected the one he wanted, changed
some names if he wished and this was not usual folded
the slip once and deposited it in a glass urn. Presumably the
elections were secret, but everyone could see through the
glass how the person had voted because the slips, although
of the same size, were of slightly different shades of white.
At length the date of the elections was set Sunday,
April 12, 1931. They were to be municipal elections for
the naming of city, town and village councilors throughout
the country. The local alcalde^ or mayor, and his councilors
were important to the regime at Madrid which always strove
14 Spanish Kaleidoscope
to have men who could be counted on as the government's
henchmen in all local affairs.
Although these were to be municipal elections, everyone
knew that In fact they were a national plebiscite on the issue
of whether or not the King should go and a Republic be
proclaimed.
For some time I had been watching affairs from the
vantage point of Andorra where a small band of Spaniards
in exile were living and waiting for that change in the order
of things that would permit them to go back to Spain. From
this vantage point I went frequently into Spain and especially
to the old cathedral and garrison town of Seo de Urgel,
about ten miles from the border.
And so it was that on the appointed April 12, a bright
and glorious Sunday, I crossed over to Seo.
Spain on this day began writing a new chapter of history.
This feeling took hold of me as I went through the town,
talked to the people, watched the casting of ballots at the
two polling places. Once in a while some man from outside
the town was turned down because his name was not on the
list. It was evident that the authorities in charge of certifying
the lists had here and there scratched off the names of per-
sons whom they found particularly objectionable because of
their liberal tendencies. But they dared not do this often.
These elections were the first since the Cortes, or na-
tional parliament, had been abolished in 1923 by the dicta-
torship. As I watched the casting of ballots I knew that I
was witnessing the birth of a new Republic of which every-
one was saying already that it would not make the mistakes
of the first one the one that was born in 1873 and had a
brief term of life. The verdict was known before the count-
ing began. The people had voted to throw out the King.
The climax came swiftly. By the next evening Alfonso,
the last of the Bourbons, whom the majority of Spaniards
felt they never could trust, had already left his palace, an
exile. He had to listen to the counsel of one of his own
titled advisers, the Count of Romanones, a man with a repu-
tation for reasonableness and also for being good to the
A Republic Is Born 15
peasants on his large estates, who told the King that for his
own safety, and for Spain's good, it was best that he leave.
A destroyer would be ready at a Mediterranean port to take
him and his family to France.
It had been a tense Monday all over Spain. Repeatedly
one heard the cry in Madrid, in Barcelona, in all Spain's
cities and pueblos "Afuera el rey!" "Out with the King!"
On Tuesday the tensions relaxed with the news that the King
had in fact left the palace in response to the popular will and
was speeding away on a vessel of war that flew the Republi-
can banner. Spaniards who had so often been called a
violent people took pride in the fact that they had given
the world what was probably its only example of a bloodless
revolution. A few years more and they would learn that
there was no such thing. The bloodshed had merely been
delayed.
On that Tuesday I watched as the humble, and for this
occasion white-gloved, town crier of Seo marched proudly
at the head of the garrison troops, blew his bugle, and pro-
claimed the Republic in conformity with the new decree
from Madrid. Then the band played the Republican an-
them, the "Himno del Riego" The troops marched back
to the garrison's main portal, where they placed a ladder
against the high stone arch, put ropes around the King's
royal escutcheon, after which the soldiers on the ground,
tug-of-war fashion, pulled it down. The Republican banner
was hoisted on the garrison staff and the band again played
the Republican hymn.
Republican banners unfurled everywhere as i by
magic. They flew from flagpoles, from steeples, from bal-
conies and, in the form of streamers, the colors were hung
along the sides of passenger trains and buses. The engine
of the train that went down to Barcelona from the last rail-
road station, Puigcerda, twenty miles or so from Seo, was
adorned with green garlands and Republican flags. Many
of the flags that I now saw flying were well made, as though
they had been kept in storage for just this occasion. Others
were of cloth hastily dyed or sewn together.
i6 Spanish Kaleidoscope
(In the year 1957 everyone in Spain, Franco included,
knew that many other Republican banners were being se-
cretly kept in storage for another suitable occasion.)
As I passed through the country on a bus that connected
with the railroad to Barcelona, I observed that in one town
and village after another the people had climbed to the
towers of churches in orderly fashion, taking their turns at
the bells. The bells rang out the Republican good news all
through the day, and into the night.
As I heard the deep-throated clamor of bells reverberat-
ing from one pueblo to the other and mingling their metallic
singing, there hummed through my mind some lines of the
Spanish poet, Antonio Machado: "Let anvils clash and bells
be silent."
The bells w^re not silent now, although they would be
in time. But the anvils were clashing already. They would
be clashing through eight turbulent years clashing now in
Republican forges hammering out new political groups, new
popular fronts, new provisional and regional governments,
new laws and new programs for the future.
But soon you would also hear them in the smithies of
anti-Republicans, forging obstructions, oppositions, military
conspiracies and attempts at seizure of power by violence.
Now, however, the infant Republic was confident.
People had already begun to call it affectionately "el nino 3f
the baby and to invoke all kinds of blessings for it.
Before many months it would be seen that, although
it avoided the mistakes of the first Republic which died
with a military pronunciamiento after less than two years
of life, the second Republic also was making some mistakes
which it had the good sense to see and to endeavor to
rectify. During the years lying ahead the Republic would
be confident in putting down one uprising after another and
in generously sparing the lives of certain military conspira-
tors generals caught in the act.
But today all was joyous. No one had time to waste in
speculations on the pitfalls ahead. The bells that foretold
brighter days refused to be stilled.
A Republic Is Born
"Make the Republic Impossible!"
Two years after that Sunday so freighted with hope
I felt obliged, on the basis of what was transpiring, to make
an unpleasant foreshadowing of events. Having posed the
question whether the Republican forces would be able to
hold their own against the forces of reaction the conspira-
cies of the generals, the monarchists and the political hier-
archy I answered: "The greatest danger is offered by the
first group" that is, the reactionaries.*
Even then these forces were preparing the blow.
The generals had already attempted to strike. The Republic
had turned to face them, had struck down their latest pro-
nunciamiento and made sport of their efforts, an unheard-of
proceeding in Spain where generals had always had the last
word. It had captured their fugitive leader, General San-
jurjo, tried him and sentenced him to death, and then par-
doned him. A year or so later he was hatching a new golpe,
a new blow at the Republic, from the safety of totalitarian
Portugal.
In April, 1936, as the Republic was joyously celebrating
its fifth birthday, all the reactionary forces were saying:
"Let this be the Republic's last birthday!" "Hacerle la vida
imposible! Make life impossible for it!"
After the elections of March, 1934, which overwhelm-
ingly returned a liberal Republican government to replace
the reactionaries who during the preceding "black bien-
nium" had attempted to gut the Republic, the generals had
again begun showing their teeth. They defied superior
orders and created a scandalous disturbance at the inaugura-
tion of the new Republican President, Seiior Manuel Azana.
At Valencia they had attempted a golpe by seizing the radio
station and creating other disturbances before they were
routed. One of the foremost conspirators, a general named
*" Whither Spain," Foreign Affairs, October, 1933.
i8 Spanish Kaleidoscope
Francisco Franco, had twice called on the transitional Prime
Minister just after those March elections as that Prime
Minister, Portela Valladares, later told the story to me
with a demand that he deliver the government into the hands
of the generals. He refused; the true Republicans stepped
in quickly but in a generous spirit retaliated by exiling the
conspirator generals to commands in the Balearic Islands
and North Africa. The conspirator Franco went to the
Canary Islands, This was the Republic's worst and fatal
mistake. By not awarding to traitors the fate reserved for
treason the Republic wrote its own death warrant. The
generals, being away from the eyes of the government at
Madrid, accelerated their conspiracies, maintaining contacts
with the pardoned traitor in Portugal, who in turn was mak-
ing contacts with the agents of Mussolini and Hitler but of
Hitler especially.
The civilian groups of the conspiracy were engaged in
a well-conceived program of creating disorders in Madrid,
in Barcelona and all over Spain. Armed bands shot up
cafes and the streets just outside them. Time bombs were
placed in the homes of Republican deputies. Republican
personalities were put on the spot, gangster fashion, and
fired upon or bombed in the streets, or as they drove abroad
in their cars. All this had the double objective of "making
life impossible" for the Republic and of creating a basis for
the accusation, "The Republic is unable to maintain law and
order."
In theory the Civil Guard was loyal to the Republic.
But its tradition was that of loyalty to the monarchy, to all
the reactionaries. And it had a bad reputation for treachery.
The Republic accepted its protestations of loyalty, but at
the same time created and strengthened its own Guardias de
Seguridad or Security Police, recruited from men of known
Republican sympathies. The Republic used the Guardias
to contain the perpetrators of planned disorder, and they
acted with much effect.
The forces of premeditated disorder retaliated by attacks
on the Guardias from ambush. One night in July, 1936, two
A Republic Is Born 19
Guardlas were kidnapped and one murdered. The next
night the Guardias retaliated. They kidnapped the high
priest of the rebellious reactionaries, took him to a ceme-
tery outside Madrid and murdered him, too. It was a terrible
deed which the Republic would have prevented at all costs
had it known what was afoot. The murder of Calvo Sotelo,
leader of the monarchists, was like a detonation that would
set Spain ablaze in all its four corners. However terrible
the deed, Sotelo was far from the noble hero the supporters
of Franco have tried to represent him as being.
In the tense days that followed, communication was
cut off between city and city and between pueblo and
pueblo. Spain was hermetically sealed so that you could
not tell the outside world what was happening there. Inside
Spain the wildest nightmares of rumor followed one after
another. Yet none was so wild as the reality which would
soon be uncovered.
On the night of July 18 to 19, grim crowds of whom
many were armed with rifles and pistols surged on Barce-
lona's Ramblas the broad paseo of the lower city just as
they also surged on the paseos of Madrid and Valencia and
of the cities and towns all over Spain. A whole country was
on the verge of revolution, and you knew that nothing could
stop it.
All that Saturday night and until late Sunday morning
I mingled with the crowds and walked and chatted with
Republican leaders. Shortly before dawn I turned toward
home up the Ramblas, up the Paseo de Gracia, to the point
where it was traversed by the great cross-town artery called
El Diagonal. A mile to the north, this diagonal avenue ended
near the principal military barracks at the edge of the city.
This crossroads was the crucial point of debouchement
through the city if the military forces came down from the
Pedralbes barracks in revolt. A force of Guardias de Se-
guridad was stationed about. And here, as if according to
schedule, the military columns arrived in less than an hour.
Here the first battle of the civil war in this region of Spain
was fought and won by the Republican forces.
20 Spanish Kaleidoscope
Simultaneously battles were raging in Madrid, in Valen-
cia and elsewhere. Everywhere the Republican forces were
victorious as in Barcelona where General Coded, Franco's
opposite number there, had been captured before the end
of the day and had broadcast an order to the rebels to lay
down their arms. It was unheard of that popular forces
should face military armed might and put it to rout. A mere
pronunciamiento and a surrounding of the Congreso back
there in the 1870*5 had sufficed to put an end to the earlier
Republic. Now this Republic had shown itself capable of
defending itself and the nation. The Republic was proud.
For a day or two jubilation pervaded the scenes of the
Republican victories. But the rebels were entrenching in the
deep heart of Spain, in portions of Old Castile, in Aragon, in
Navarre, in Estremadura and in certain parts of Andalucia.
Few on the Republican side dreamed that the rebels could
hold out for long. But uneasiness grew as they did.
The rebellious forces held out in their strongholds even
though some of their generals, like Coded, had been cap-
tured and executed. The time for Republican benevolence
toward traitors had passed. The "brains" of the rebellion was
not Franco but General Sanjurjo in Portugal he whom the
Republic had pardoned. Now he was preparing to fly from
Portugal to head the revolt. He was killed in a crash of his
overloaded airplane. His understudy, Franco, stepped into
his shoes.
The Republic, which on that twelfth day of April had
been born with such a joyous clanging of bells and unfurl-
ing of Republican banners, now fought for its life. It was
fated (as will later be seen) to fight desperately on for close
to three years while suffering and death, and deeds worse
than death, left their marks upon Spain and their scars upon
Western history.
The end came in March, 1939, as a bitter prelude to
the great World War which would commence before the
year ran its course.
In April, 1931, I had seen the rejoicing of the liberty- 1
loving people of Spain. Now, in February, 1939, I was ob-
A Republic Is Born 21
serving the dolorous end of the "nino" just across the Spanish
border, at the mountain pass of Perthus in France. There I
saw those once joyous masses filing in unending thin columns
through the pass, over the bridge to a place of escape if not
of new hope, like bedraggled mourners in a funeral proces-
sion.
At a small cottage just outside Perpignan where, in the
crowded condition of that city, I had found lodging, as I sat
by the open fireplace where an old woman in black was
cooking a meal, the old woman said solemnly: "Monsieur
ce n'est pas encore la fin" "Sir, the end is not yet."
The Republic was dead its death celebrated by the
clanging of bells in the towers of the cathedrals I had seen
respected during the rebellion in Gerona, in Barcelona and
elsewhere in Spain; also celebrated by the peals of other
church bells and the chanting of a solemn Te Deum mass
in Rome.
Little by little, Spaniards in exile and their brethren
remaining in Spain took heart, began to look to the future
and to say as the French woman had said: "The end is not
yetl"
No, it was still far from the end.
In Spain, Fascism imported from Italy and, Hitler-style,
from Berlin, and tricked out to make it appear somewhat
more Spanish, was destined to trample on Spanish hopes for
close to two decades as this book appears.
The bells of hope are silent now.
But the struggle goes on.
Let us now peer more deeply into the land that is
Spain and become acquainted with those anthropological and
historical forces, those experiences of past generations and
those facets of Spanish character which, it is hoped, will give
us a better understanding of what has been and still is
happening in Spain, and of the meaning of Spam's struggle
for freedom.
We shall then again pick up the story of the ill-fated
Republic and of the events that have followed its fall.
Part Two THE EARLY ROOTS
3 Spaniards Live in Two Spanish Worlds
When you pose the question, "Whither goes Spain?'* and
search for the answer you must begin by taking account of
the fact that Spaniards live in two Spanish worlds. Yet this
was not always so and cannot be so forever.
One world is that of individual freedom, human equal-
ity, and of the deeply planted urge to move forward and
this is the older. Its watchword is "Hacia la feliddad desde
aba jo" "Toward happiness from below" for the masses
dream always of happier days, as the Israelites dreamed of the
Promised Land. During two thousand years no tragic inter-
lude has been able to shatter this dream.
The other is a complex, absolutist and privileged world
which has been described as a world of mystical imperialism
that world of the elite already referred to. Its watchword
is "Revolution desde arriba" "Revolution from the top."
In pursuit of its visions it has given Spain absolutism and
centralization in various forms; it has imposed the deadly
Inquisition and religious and political wars; it considers
individual liberty and human equality to be very un-Spanish,
ideals that arose from some exuberant and unrealistic ex-
pressions that crept into a famous "Sermon on the Mount/'
so it thinks. Its concept of Spain's true promised land is
one where the ordinary people have acquired the habit of
thinking according to predigested formulae and of not think-
ing too much; also, have learned to obey without murmur-
ing. They believe that Spain's golden age will come true
when this vision is turned into reality.
This second world is peopled by frustrated and often
Spaniards Live in Two Spanish Worlds 23
neurotic caballeros, by cynical, pleasure-loving senoritos
(young men), and by civil and religious dignitaries who never
have learned the often-demonstrated truth that revolution
from the top has never succeeded in Spain despite the fact
that it has the advantage of force and the power to command.
Even when a well-meaning King Charles III the best of
the Bourbons tried to improve conditions by breaking up
large landholdings and by placing curbs on the church, his
revolution from the top failed because it did not find response
in the Spaniards of that other world. When, in 1788, the
King bowed out, the old order returned.
Living in its climate of misdirected and melancholy
mysticism, this second world has taken trono y altar as its
shibboleth. Although throne and altar often quarrel vio-
lently, they would never dream of divorcement, one needs
the other so much.
The first world recognizes that Spain is a land of diversi-
fied customs, languages and cultures, corresponding to its
numerous and diversified regions.
But the second insists that Spanish language and cus-
toms and even religion must be one. It makes a fetish of
the term "Spanish unity."
The one says, "Men are made to be free/' while the
other insists, "Common people must submit to their betters."
When the one affirms that power resides in the people,
the other taunts them with the "heresy of liberalism." And
its ecclesiastical spokesmen add that liberalism was the sin
of the rebellious angels and merits the identical punishment
those angels received.
The first world had its beginning in the nation's dawn-
ing and cast a humanizing glow on the land's Middle
Ages which were not the same as its dark age. The other
arose when the dark age commenced after the death of
Henry IV of Castile in 1474. Fernando -and Isabel ushered
the dark age in, for which performance they have received
the second world's accolade of Los Reyes Gatolicos, or the
Catholic Sovereigns.
There are few signs of compromise between these two
24 The Early Roots
worlds. Yet it is not true, as has been said, that Spaniards have
no word for "compromise." They do of course have the
frequently used word compromise but it means promise or
pledge, which is not compromise's meaning in English. But
they also have the word conciliation, first cousin to com-
promise. And conciliation is much used among Spaniards.
The effort to conciliate contending parties is the first
step in a Spanish action at law. In the late Civil War, Prime
Minister Juan Negrin tried to conciliate the opposing forces,
but the Franco side would have none of it. Former President
Azaiia told me after the war, in his retreat on the border of
Switzerland, that he had tried to conciliate the rebellious
factions on the eve of that war but that they wished not
conciliation but bloodshed.
Still the question persists: "Which of the two worlds
will win out in the end?" One must look to la raza> "the
race," for there lie the clues. And one ought to remember
that wars are never ended except by putting an end to their
causes.
The Race Is a Fusion of Ancient Peoples
Those who lump all Spaniards together and speak of
them as though they were made of the same batch of clay
and spoke the same original language, had the same manner
of thinking and think all alike, present a false picture. For
Spain, more than any other country in Europe, is a land of
diversity. Under the monarchies Spaniards spoke of their
land, not as "Espafia," but as "las Espanas" the Spains. In
fact the Kings of the centralized and "unified" Spain of the
last five hundred years called themselves "King of the
Spains." Spain never has been, and never will be, unified in
the sense of being a homogeneous nation. There are as
many Spains as its forty-nine provinces.
It has been said that Spain probably has more kinds
of ideologies than all Western Europe north of the Pyrenees.
A comparison is sometimes made between Spain's particulari-
ties and its superdiversity of plant life. It is pointed out, for
Spaniards Live in Two Spanish Worlds 25
instance, that a single province, Madrid, has more varieties
of plants than all the British Isles.
Spain's richer varieties of plant life, and of people, fol-
low an almost identical law governing the propagation of
species. There was a time during and after the fourth ice
age when the Iberian peninsula had land connections with
the British Isles, at such points as Ireland, Cornwall, Wales
and Scotland. Thither marched Mediterranean heather, and
a generous assortment of trees and plants indigenous to the
peninsula. But the Isles were cut off from the European
mainland before most of the vegetation could creep over the
land bridges.
It has been much the same with the extraordinary
varieties of peoples that flowed out of the distant East across
the Russian steppes and down European watersheds to the
foot of the Pyrenees, whence they filtered through the nu-
merous defiles into the cul-de-sac that the peninsula is. Over
the land bridges to the British Isles had also moved Iberians
and Celts. In Spain the varieties of people that, like the
varieties of plant life, propagated themselves, account for
Spanish complexities.
For here, in the wake of cave men and Stone Age hu-
mans you will find the caves In Santander province to the
north and megalithic monuments" - mT"fK"e Iste tt c>f "Minorca
came Iberiair^iiTT[aif/"'PEoenid^ and his Carthaginian
brethren, and Greek. After them came the might of coloniz-
ing Rome taking two centuries to conquer the stubborn
Iberians and Celts. They had come in the first place to drive
their Carthaginian rivals out of the country after Hannibal's
march from Spain against Rome. In their wake, barbaric
Alans, Suevi, Vandals and Huns surged over the Pyrenees
out of the Russian steppes.
In the fourth century A.D., while Roman power was in
the final stages of decay, the country called on the Christian-
ized but non-orthodox Visigoths to drive out the barbarians.
They came and, liking the country, remained for close to
four centuries. They established their rule and warred with
the orthodox Catholic Christians. Later they too became
26 The Early Roots
Catholic. The Vandals gave their name to Andalucia
(Vandalusia), crossed over to Africa like the other barbarians
and vanished. The Visigoths remained until the arrival of
the misnamed "Moors" in 711. The invaders consisted of
Arab and North African Berber, Syrian and Copt. Con-
siderably later came the Jews. The Franks also invaded the ,
country, establishing the Spanish March on the Spanish
side of the eastern Pyrenees to ward off the Moslem invasion
of France.
Of the ancient, pre-Moslem strains, the Iberian is doubt-
less the one that left its most universal mark. All Spaniards,
even to the Basques of such mysterious origin, accept the
appellation of Iberian, although Spaniards accept no other
general label. Whence came the Iberians? This is a question
that has perplexed many an earnestly inquiring Spaniard and
continues to do so. Before the Iberians reached Spain they
seem to have been a Mediterranean people who crossed over
from Africa. But whence came they to Africa? Certain
Spanish scholars have opined that they issued forth from
the extreme Orient and that they gave to Spaniards a primary,
if far distant, kinship with Orientals, which is one of the
reasons they say to this day, "The Orient begins at the
Pyrenees." But it is not the sole reason. Each of the other
ancient invaders, before the Romans' arrival, also breathed
4 of the East and in varying degrees left on Spain the mark of
the Orient. The immediate justification of the proverbial
saw, of course, was the Moslem invasion and occupation,
which in most of Spain lasted for five hundred years and in
parts of it more than eight hundred.
In greater or less degree, then, almost all Spaniards have
Oriental casts of speech and of thought. The most common
mistake made by the Western visitor to Spain is to assume
that Spaniards think like himself and his kind. Although
the Basques, with excellent justification, consider themselves
,an exception to the rule of Oriental influence they are per*
haps the remnants of the lost race of Mediterranean dark
whites it has to be recognized that long association has
Spaniards Live in Two Spanish Worlds 27
imparted to them some of the outlook of their neighbors of
Spain.
The Western outlook came with the Romans and was
so considerable that it might have made a preponderantly
Western nation of Spain had not Roman civilization de-
clined, so opening the way for new waves of Oriental influ-
ence the Visigoth wave followed by that of the Moslems.
Yet the Romans left a mark upon Spain which survives
to this day. It is mainly political and in certain aspects cul-
tural. Roman law, for instance, remains the basis of Spanish
law.
The Romans were consummate colonizers and shrewd
masters of political science. Although conquerers, they came
not to ravish the country, but to plant themselves there in
order to develop the coordinate interests of Rome and of
Spain. They did this so well that in time Spain gave em-
perors to Rome as well as poets, historians and educators.
The Emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, like
some others, were Spanish. The poet Martial, much loved
in Rome, was a Spaniard; Spanish were the educator Seneca
and Quintilian the teacher of orators.
It was the Roman political system which encouraged
and gave permanent form to the pattern of local autonomy
so distinctive of Spain. The Romans made organized towns
of the Iberian settlements and gave them municipal charters.
The object was to make the Iberians town-dwelling, con-
tented and prosperous. Thus the people developed a strongly
localized sense of self-sufficiency, of civic feeling and patrio-
tism which has grown with the passing of centuries and
which makes a Spaniard feel that his country is not just the
Espanas, but his own pueblo.
Although Spain is commonly spoken of as a Latin
country, and while the localizing aspects of Roman colonial
policy have remained to blend with cultural qualities that
the Spaniards have otherwise inherited, both before and
after the Romans, it is far from correct to refer to Spaniards
as Latins. This is especially revealed in their languages.
28 The Early Roots
Rome's linguistic influence was watered down until it be-
came rather thin during the centuries in which the country's
chief language was Arabic. Except in the Catalan region,
it might have disappeared altogether had not the rather
fortuitous political rise of Castile, beginning with the elev-
enth century, gradually transformed a regional dialect,
scarcely more than a patois, into a language.
The really vigorous Romance language was Catalan.
It was one of a family of languages known as Occitan or
Westernized Latin. This family is spoken today all across
the Mediterranean littoral from Marseilles to Valencia. In
France its variants are Provencal, Auvergnat, Languedoc,
Gascon, Limousin, Ariegeois and Roussillon. In Spain it is
Catalan, Valencian and the Balearic Island idioms. They
are so closely related that if you understand one you can
readily understand the other. Although the Balearic island-
ers like to tell visitors that they have a distinct language,
different from all others, the fact is they speak Catalan with
slight local variants. I had no difficulty in understanding
and conversing with them* It was the survival, and, after a
period of dormancy, the revival of Catalan in Catalonia,
that has given to Catalans their strong sense of regional
nationalism.
At the arrival of the Arabs and Berbers, Spain had a
medley of languages which also included Basque, Galician,
Aragonese, Andalusian and others. Of these, the Catalan,
the Basque and the Galician remain living languages. A
transformed Galician is the present-day Portuguese. In fact,
Galician was the dominant language o Spain outside of the
regions politically influenced by the Basques and the Cata-
lans. It was the principal language of the refugee Christians
in the north during the period of Moslem rule. But as the
Castilian kings rose to power and consolidated neighboring
kingdoms, their Castilian dialect entered a phase of vigorous
development. Still the most commonly spoken language was
Arabic. It was also the language of state, of the universities,
and of science and literature.
It was not until the period of unification inaugurated in
Spaniards Live in Two Spanish Worlds 29
the late fifteenth century by Isabel, the true Castillan sov-
ereign, and Castile's adopted king, Fernando, that Castilian
became implanted officially. When a scholar who had writ-
ten the first Castilian grammar presented it to Isabel, she
quite innocently asked, "What is it for?" It became a matter
of pride to Castilian that their language should become the
vehicle of Christians. They tried to kill off all others. Their
hostility was particularly directed against the Catalan. Some-
times when Catalans spoke their own language to Castilians,
they would be rebuffed with the retort: "Habla Usted Cris-
tiano" "Speak Christian."
But this "Christian" language was really more Arabic
and Moslem than Latin and Christian. The people of Spain,
even to the Christians, had acquired Arabic and Moslem
habits of thought, which meant that they held to similar
habits of speaking. What is called the Spanish language to-
day is freighted with Arabic root words and Arabic phras-
ings.
The Spaniard calls this language not Spanish but Castil-
ian. He does not ask "Do you speak Spanish?" but "Habla
Usted castellaneT' One of its peculiarities, which deceives
the novice who finds elementary Spanish fairly simple, are
the long involved sentences of which it is capable, and which
are frequently as long as the page of a book, or three or
four hundred words. Even Spaniards sometimes find it dif-
ficult to unravel these sentences, which defy all parsing by
Western grammatical standards. I recall the story, derisively
told by Catalan friends, of an involved official circular from
the Ministry of Education directed to the universities. It
was posted on the University of Barcelona's bulletin board,
but not one of the university's professors could unravel it.
Many factors have contributed to Spanish diversity, but
one of the most important of them is the natural dissimi-
larity of terrain, climate and soil. A Roman, Pliny the
Elder, speaking of these differences, said that "some parts
of Spain are wretchedly poor, but where the land does yield
it is fertile in wheat, oil, wine, horses . . . but in its barren
places Spain wins, with its esparto, its mica, the lovely color
go The Early Roots
of its dyes, the ardor of its workmen, the skill o its slaves,
the bodily endurance of its people, and their vehement
spirit/' Incidentally this bodily endurance is an observable
fact which gives the lie to the much-repeated stereotype
that Spaniards are lazy. The vineyardists of southern France
have long sought after Spanish workers because of their
industrious qualities. The Spanish servant is often still at
her dishwashing and kindred labors at midnight.
You will find more differences of natural conditions in
Spain than in any other country of Europe. The maze of
crisscrossing mountain ranges, the high plateaus and the low-
lands, the long rivers which, with the exception of the Ebro,
run coastwise; the dissimilar coastal influences of the Atlantic
Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea; the tempering winds
from ocean on the north and the west, the hot blasts or
bitter cold winds from North Africa; the buffer effect of
the Pyrenees all these have combined to give Spain a
medley of climates such as seldom is met with in so limited
an area.
In the Mediterranean regions of the Pyrenees, the Cata-
lan territory, are dense forests, swift mountain streams and
as rich a vegetation and productive an agriculture as any
in Europe. On the Atlantic coast, from France to Portugal,
are soft skies laden with moisture, lush growth, and more
fertile fields. On the Mediterranean coast from Barcelona to
Malaga are magnificent orange groves, date-bearing palms
and the giant-size Malaga grapes much appreciated by epi-
cures.
In Andalucfa and Estremadura are the great landhold-
ings, called latifundias, of aristocratic absentee landlords.
Sixty per cent of the land in Spain is owned by four per
cent of the population. Here also are hordes of landless
and impoverished peasants. Yet here, as well, flourish fruit-
ful olive groves and vineyards whose grapes produce those
strong ferments that make Andalucia the world's center
of sherry production and of the port-like Malaga wines;
along the rivers are wheat fields and rice paddies.
Spaniards Live in Two Spanish Worlds 31
The interior o Spain rises to a high, mountain-studded
plateau, barren of forests, barren of water, fit only for graz-
ing and hardly for that; but the valleys are fertile. Here the
climate is savage, unruly; it is scorchingly hot in the summer
and bitingly cold in the winter; the winters of this area, of
which the center is Madrid, are the rawest west of the Rhine
and the Danube. By comparison, the Swiss Alps may be
called balmy. Terrible, desolating seasonal storms and floods
sweep over the area.
Such are the geographical variations of which one must
have knowledge in order to comprehend Spanish diversities.
These geographical differences have had a profound ef-
fect on its people. Hemmed in by their numerous moun-
tains and enclaves, their manners and customs have acquired
the tone of the local geographical characteristics, to which
must be added, of course, the racial and other ingredients
already mentioned. These factors have also conditioned the
Spaniards* political particularities and what they refer to
as their "social outlook/' by which they mean their ide-
ologies pertaining to social organization.
The Barcelonans like to think of themselves as the New
Yorkers of Spain to whom time is money. But they also like
to sit in their cafes during long hours, nonchalantly to miss
their appointments and to put many things off until tomor-
row. Fortunately they also get many important things done.
In fact, they are the incarnation of speed compared with the
Andalucians to whom time and space seem to have no mean-
ing whatever.
Catalans and Galicians are suspicious while Andalucians
and Castilians incline to be trusting. The Basques are hard-
headed and obstinate, the Aragonese parochial and stolid.
The Andalucian beggar is proud as a king; the Madrileno
likes to live like a king. Such are a few of the samplings of
the multiple and complex character traits of the Spaniards
from which Spain derives an extraordinary vitality.
And so it comes that we have the spectacle of a con-
siderable variety of psychological variations. It is charac-
$2 The Early Roots
teristic of all Spanish peoples that they have an Oriental
sense of limitless time. Life is seen against a background of
eternity.
4 The Individualism of Spaniards
The individualism of Spaniards is their desert inherit-
ance. It is intense and relentless. The Western world has
nothing comparable to it. In all literature there is probably
no more implacably original individualist than Don Quixote.
His armor-bearer, Sancho Panza, is not far behind him. Yet
Spain has ever had legions of Quixotes and Panzas. Each
one is unique. It was so in the days of Cervantes, and it
will be so when a new Daniel arises to judge of his race.
The race never changes.
The Spaniard is never so satisfied with himself as when
he has become una autoridad, that is, one armed with au-
thority. Sancho Panza's fondest dream was to be governor
of an island, as his master had promised, and upon becom-
ing the butt of a hoax whereby he was "governor" for a few
days he ruled exceedingly well. The humblest badge of a
Spaniard's authority is a gorro, a high-crowned cap with a
stiff brim, like a trainman's. Whether he be the capitan of
a road gang, the jefe del tren or train conductor, or else the
lowly town crier, he wears his gorro with pride and allows
no one to mistake him for an ordinary mortal not entitled,
as he is, to issue official commands or to wear a cap with a
peak.
Although the Spaniard loves to command, he does not,
by inclination, take any man's orders excepting his own.
While he exhibits a gracious courtesy which impels him to
say that he remains "at your orders/' and calls himself "your
servant," one would be ill advised to mistake this for an
invitation to issue instructions to him. He would probably
The Individualism of Spaniards 35
advise his preceptor with somewhat diminished urbanity to
go peel potatoes. Notwithstanding, if you indulge in the
proper punctilio in dealing with him, he will do almost
anything for you.
In one of my conversations with the late Republican
President, Azafia, he said: "In Spain everyone is a political
leader. The leader hangs out a sign, gathers a few others
about him and blossoms out as the head of a party. His col-
leagues also look upon themselves as leaders never as fol-
lowers. Yet it is true that the Spaniard senses that no one
can lead except the one who knows how to follow."
Spanish individualism glows with the embers of the
ancient races that gave their innate fire to Spaniards. Most
of all it swept upon Spain out of the African deserts where
men roamed in limitless space with spirits as free as the
winds that rushed over the sands. In this respect, too, Arab
and Berber have left their stamp on the race.
One of the severest judgments on Spanish individualism
was passed by a modern Spaniard, Jose del Castillejo:
"Spaniards/' he said, "have seldom the capacity to efface
themselves as creators. Their strong individuality does not
permit them to make themselves familiar with the ideas
and feeling of others, and no education or government is
possible without the spiritual transmigration, universal sym-
pathy and profound respect toward any living force."
Don Jose erred by oversimplification. He has not told
the whole of the story. The more complete picture is that
Spanish character is brimming over with paradoxes, of which
none stands in bolder relief than the Spaniard's too frequent
intolerance of the ideas of others, with all that lack of sym-
pathy which intolerance implies, while he has an immense
capacity for sympathizing with the feelings of others, provid-
ing he judges them to be worthy of sympathy. Herein lies
the kernel of the riddle. It is something far different from
the blanket statement that Spaniards lack capacity for par-
ticipating in the feelings of others.
One of the most popular ballads of Spain, even now,
is that which recounts the deeds of the eleventh-century Cid.
"34 The Early Roots
And what is the basis of that popularity? Sympathy for Dona
Urraca who resisted her brother, the King, who sought to de-
spoil her of her possessions as he had already despoiled the rest
of his family. There is unending applause for the gallant
Cid who tossed his fortunes away to champion the cause
of the wronged lady. The keynote of sympathy runs all
through the poem. When the King, Alfonso VI, forbids the
inhabitants of Burgos to give the Cid hospitality, the entire
populace shows its admiration for him by sending a little
girl to warn him of the King's designs on his life, and by
silently watching through the slits of their windows as he
rides through the city.
Yet the Cid, so capable of compassionate feelings, is
also an arch-individualist* He flaunts his individualism by
deliberately making himself the enemy of his master, the
King, when he might have had royal favor and preferment.
He again brandishes his individualism on a visit to the Pope
at Rome, when he destroys a valued ivory chair by way of
giving a hint to His Holiness that, being a Castilian, he is
as good as the man who sits on the throne of St. Peter.
One of the themes of Lope de Vega's plays is the Span-
iards' capacity for solidarity against the wicked and the op-
pressor. In one of them, Fuente Ovejuna, he strikes the
same note of capacity for broad sympathy that we feel in
The Cid, when all the inhabitants of a village become as a
single individualized hero. In another, El Comendador de
Ocana, all the peasants of the comarca, or district, join in
ridiculing the hidalgo who was routed by a peasant's wife
whom he had come to seduce.
During my first visits to Spain, before I became a resi-
dent there, I had some experience of those paradoxes of
Spanish character that sometimes revealed themselves as a
mixture of individualism, pride and consideration for
others.
At a little mountain town, an English journalist and
I, both having made the town a center for mountain ex-
cursions, found ourselves in the midst of a lively village
fiesta. A raised platform had been erected in the plaza
The Individualism of Spaniards 35
whereon the populace danced while a band played in a
corner. We decided to go in with the gay throng and of-
fered our money. When the gateman seemed to be passing
us in without taking our money we called his attention to
his apparent oversight. "Extranferos no pagan" "Strangers
don't pay/' he said, waving us in. I could not help thinking
of other places in Europe where I would more likely be told:
"Strangers pay double/'
On another occasion, tramping through a part of the
Pyrenees, I came upon a farmyard on a slope, and near the
house was a tree laden with cherries. I could not resist
reaching for some, but as I caught liold of a limb it broke
off. Just then the proprietor appeared around the house
corner. "Well, I'm in for a talking-to/' I thought. But the
farmer, instead of giving an exhibition of wrath, said smil-
ingly: "If you will go to the other side of the house you will
find a tree with much better cherries."
Taking some fruit for yourself as you pass through the
countryside is scarcely considered stealing in Spain. Span-
iards told me that a traveler was welcome to take such fruits
of the fields as he could eat while he passed, but no more.
This custom, like many others in Spain, has a Biblical
origin. In the code of Moses the husbandman was enjoined
to leave part of his harvest in the fields for the needy. The
Book of Ruth gives a graphic picture of the gleaners leaving
some wheat on the stalks for th unfortunate. Doubtless
the other-time long dreary journeys afoot or by donkey in
part account for the custom's continuance.
In Granada's great plaza near the cathedral people are
accustomed to gather in the mornings to breakfast on chu
rros and cafe con leche, and to start the day's gossip and
rumors. Churros are made from a batter similar to that o
a doughnut. They are funneled into great pots of boiling
olive oil in the shape of large spiral coils. After the coils,
browned and crisp, are forked out, they are broken up into
sticks, placed in a bag and covered with sugar.
One side of the plaza was lined with the stalls, each
with a pot presided over by a white-aproned amo. Having
36 The Early Roots
bought a bagful of churros at one stall, I was sauntering past
the next one when I was surprised to find the bag pulled
out of my hand. The owner of the second stall had lifted
it from me, and was handing me a bagful of his own with
his compliments.
With the solemnity of a judge he said: "Aquellos no
valen estos si son buenos " "Those are no good but
these, yes, are good."
There you had the Spanish individualism, pride and
solicitude all in one, but also mixed with contempt for
the feelings of a rival whose ideas of the right way to make
churros were not shared. Consider my bagful of churros a
bagful of political ideas, and it would be much the same
thing.
On the way from Granada to Murcia I had another
experience of Spanish solicitude and of disdain for raw self-
interest. The arrival of a train at a station in this part of
Spain is much like the arrival of a ship after a long journey.
The whole town seems to be there. The train stops a long
time. There is much talking and visiting, laughing and
singing. And occasionally tears. It is like a minor fiesta.
In the end the train makes a ceremonious departure after a
clanging of bells and a blowing of whistles.
I stepped up to a tienda to buy something what I no
longer recall. Said the proprietor as I picked up an article:
"Don't buy that. It's expensive. Try this it's much
cheaper, and better."
It needed a foreigner to cheat me in the course of this
journey. He was' an obviously expatriate Englishman who
presided over a food counter at Bobadilla station and gave
me false money.
This innate honesty and disdain for mere gain so fre-
quently found is one of the paradoxes of Spain. There is
also much corruption and greed, much bald thievery in
high places. I would say that the incidence of this sort of
thing is highest, if not almost total, in the world of the
privileged who are inclined to look upon simple honesty
of goodhearted folk, and the practical application of the
The Individualism of Spaniards 37
doctrine of man's brotherhood, as marks of the slave-soul.
Of course the unprivileged world also has its picaresque ele-
ments, but they are a quite special breed. In the main,
honesty, lack of cupidity and trustfulness are strong char-
acteristics of what, for want of a better term, I must con-
tinue to call the unprivileged world, which runs the gamut
from beggar to middle-class farmer or businessman.
During the Civil War I met with numerous instances
of Spaniards' capacity for fellow-feeling and courtesy. There
were the Spanish friends who sometimes brought me food
from the country and others who would come to bring me
a package of cigarettes, at that time very precious, when I
had no particular need for one or the other, and they them-
selves were in want.
And I remember with particular gratitude the quartet
of Guardias de Seguridad whom I met on a train as I was
returning from France with my baggage. We arrived at
Barcelona in a blackout with no transportation in sight. My
policemen friends scurried about, commandeered a car and
had it driven to my apartment on the Diagonal. As the
elevator was not operating for lack of electricity, they car-
ried my baggage upstairs. They did this out of sheer good-
ness of heart, and not out of a sense of favors to come. I
never saw them again.
Two or three years before this incident, in more normal
times, while I was fitting up my apartment, I had gone to a
store to buy furniture and rugs, expecting to pay for them
then. The store owner waved my money aside. "Some day
we'll send you a bill," he said. Some months later he did.
I was completely unknown to him. It was an old Spanish
custom that gentlemen did not buy with cash, although the
custom is not so frequently honored in the observance these
days.
Where in the world but in Spain could one find such
consideration as was once bestowed upon me and my Span-
ish host by a train crew? I had been invited to a weekend
with Spanish friends at the town of Amer in Gerona prov-
.ince. Incidentally some of the townsmen called upon me to
38 The Early Roots
settle an argument as to whether America was not really
named after Amer, rather than after Amerigo Vespucci.
Like Sir Roger de Coverley I satisfied them by opining that
there was much to be said on both sides of the question.
But I added that their claim had evidently not come to the
attention of the world's foremost scholars and deserved
their particular study.
Amer is on a small winding railroad that climbs up
from Gerona through foothills. It seems that the people
of the region had met with considerable opposition in get-
ting this road built some decades back because of the con-
cern of the good pastors of souls who sounded the warning
that railroads were highways to wickedness.
On Monday morning my host and I went down to the
station to take the down train to Gerona. My own labors
demanded my return to Barcelona. This being wartime
there was a great crowd at the station waiting to go to the
capital. In those days people from the country went to the
cities, and people from the cities went to the country, each
questing for food. When, in due time, the train whistled
and rounded a curve to stop at the station it was already
packed to bursting with food-hungry people. My hopes of
returning to my journalistic labors that day seemed dim.
My host, who was a well-esteemed man in the town,
went to speak to the conductor,, which is Spanish for engi-
neer. I recognized him as having been one of the foremost
exponents of the thesis that America was named after Amer,
and so we waved at each other. After he had been in brief
conversation with my friend, a trainman uncoupled the
engine. Then the engine backed past the train on a switch
and returned up the track. In about fifteen minutes it came
back drawing a caboose-like boxcar with a cupola, which
it had picked up at the last station. A trainman waved back
the crowd while he motioned to us to enter the car. We
were given seats of preference under the cupola where we
could look out over the countryside. Then the rest of the
crowd surged in until the car was packed like a box of
The Individualism of Spaniards 39
sardines. The station bell clanged, the cobrador which
means "collector" and is Spanish for conductor sounded
his whistle. We were off and flew like the wind caring noth-
ing for curves or for other great crowds patiently waiting
at one station after another. It was no use to disappoint
them by stopping. There was no room for even one more.
My host explained that they would simply have to come
back for tomorrow's train and take their chances on getting
aboard. During the Civil War things were like that in
Spain.
Then there was the time during the Civil War when
Barcelona was an armed camp. There was street fighting
everywhere from behind barricades crossing the streets. The
Catalan government was literally besieged in the Palacio.
It was important to get out my story. Through a maze of
narrow streets I had managed to get to the besieged govern-
ment building to have the censor's sello, or stamp, placed
on my story, after which I would take it to the radio office.
Telephone and cable lines were sealed off from the world.
Without the sello the radio office would not take my mes-
sage. Reaching the Palacio I sought out the Minister of the
Interior, a pleasant, friendly man. To .my dismay he told
me his sello was in the censorship office across the square,
and the square was under fire from behind barricades at
both sides.
If you got close enough to the barricades you could
crawl past them in a dead space. So the Minister of the
Interior and I crawled across the plaza to the censorship
office. He put his stamp on my story and we crawled back
again. Through narrow and barricaded streets I got back
to the great Plaza de Catalunya and thence to the radio of-
fice. The radio officer questioned the sello because he said
it would have been impossible for .me to get to the besieged
Palacio and come back alive. However the telephone to the
Palacio was functioning; he received assurances from the
Minister of the Interior that the story was passed, and sent
off the message. The siege lasted another two days and each
40 The Early Roots
day I got past the barricades to have the stamp put on my
story, although without the further necessity of crawling
across the square.
But if my approach had been wrong, if I had not been
found simpdtico, the Minister of the Interior would have
done nothing for me.
One must go far to find, if indeed he can find, such
kindliness, such natural and unstudied courtesy, and so large
a capacity for compassion and sympathy as are to be met
with wherever one travels in Spain. The Spaniard's reac-
tions toward others are swift and intuitive. He will do al-
most anything for the person he finds simpdtico. If the
contrary, he will not lift a finger for him.
The Spaniard does not like haughtiness or overbearing
attitudes. He does not like the person who, as he puts it,
is "heavy/' or pesado, that is, who is gloomy and lacking in
lighthearted demeanor, or is given to complaining or grum-
bling. He likes a man who is spontaneous and natural and
capable of sharing with him his laughter and sometimes his
sorrows. The greatest mistake you can make with a Spaniard
is to put on airs with him. Even the beggar considers him-
self your equal.
On a train a peasant offered me one of his black ciga-
rettes, which I declined. Somewhat later I took a pack from
my pocket and started to smoke one of my own. The peas-
ant was offended.
"But you refused my cigarilloj" he said in a hurt voice.
I explained that I had the costumbre of smoking the ciga-
rillos of my own country because his kind, though doubtless
better than mine, tasted so different. I offered him one of
mine. The Spaniard has great respect for costumbre, or
custom, his own and the other man's. My explanation, and
a few trial puffs of the American cigarette, satisfied him.
If, then, Spaniards, despite their strong individualities,
have a capacity for participating in the ideas and feelings
of others, the question arises: How may this natural ca-
pacity be canalized so as to close the wide gap between those
of one group of ideologies and those of another? One of the
Spain Was a Western Arabia 41
answers lies in the employment of those means that lead to
conciliation. But the main part of the answer lies in educa-
tion, and in the establishment of economic conditions, and
of conditions of individual freedom, to soften the asperities
of outlook that spring from unhappy circumstances.
Numerous times in its history Spain has been the battle-
ground where men fought for their right to unfettered
thought. It is heartening to think that some of the most
courageous of these were waged under the very nose of the
Inquisition. Even that good, though prudent and discrimi-
nating, Catholic, Miguel Cervantes, shot the disguised barbs
of his irony at some of the very things the Inquisition called
untouchable and holy. But what greater challenge to the
Holy Office could be issued than the reasoning of the
sixteenth-century Augustinian monk, Luis de Leon, who
believed that Heaven was the place where man's intellect
found its true home, and where there was none to set
bounds to the free play of ideas or the explorations of in-
quiring thought?
The most encouraging thing about Spain is that the
battle for intellectual freedom has never relaxed. It is in
the nature of things that this is the kind of battle that
engages only the fittest, only those untouched by the taint
of decay. It is they who have understood, as their adversaries
have not, that man is made to think and that his dignity
and power to live consist in the power to think.
5 Spain Was a Western Arabia
The Arabian-Moslem influence in Spain, so penetrating
and at the same time so little appreciated in these modern
days, is one key to the understanding of Spain and its peo-
ple.
It is important to bear in mind that for more than five
42 The Early Roots
centuries, and in some areas for more than eight centuries,
following the Arabian-Syrian-Berber invasion of 711 AJX,
Spain was not only an Arabian colony governed from Da-
mascus through its Emirs, but a large part of the time was
also an independent Arabian state ruled either by Caliphs or
regional kings. In this Western Arabia there existed a few
Christian fringes and islands. But it was a complete Arabian
world wherein Arabian culture predominated. Arabian
culture meant language, religion, philosophy, science, art,
law, architecture, handicrafts, agriculture. Against this back-
ground philosophy held a high place, in fact the most ex-
alted in Europe.
The Arabs were marvelous builders, landscape artists,
craftsmen, husbandmen. They arrived in a land weighted
down with monumental specimens of Roman architecture.
They found a diversity of constructions, such as public
buildings, Roman towns with their open-air theaters and
colosseums, their forums and market places. They came
upon aqueducts many miles long; roads running from Cadiz
to Rome and marked with milestones, bridges, arches, light-
houses and so on.
While they were filled with admiration for what the
Romans had done, it was part of their genius that they
should set about transforming and supplanting the Roman
constructions with works of their own, such as mosques,
palaces with their landscaped gardens, private villas and
other edifices breathing the mystery and charm of the East.
Their beautiful and esoteric architecture reached its climax
in the Great Mosque of Cordoba and in Granada's Alham-
bra.
These builders were also consummate agriculturalists.
They worked miracles with the stubborn Spanish soil and
transformed the land into a garden spot. Its central plateau
and its mountains were then covered with forests; they
understood the value of trees in the conservation of water.
Their reverence for water was instinctive with them.
It had been bred into their bones from ancient times; their
traditional homeland, Mesopotamia, had been rendered
Spain Was a Western Arabia 43
fertile and fruitful by the miracles wrought by water flow-
ing through canals that reconquered the desert. Mesopo-
tamia, be it recalled, was the site of the Garden of Eden.
Respect for water had also been borne in the North African
Berbers by the thirsts of the African deserts. The Moslem
emphasis on water, indeed, seemed to repeat the emphasis
on the prized acquisition of water and wells to be found in
Biblical lore. Hezekiah built dams; and also shut off the
fountains and brooks when menaced by the Assyrian king.
"Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much
water?" he asked.
It is a curious fact that this reverence for water formed
part of the Arabs' everyday ritual. Before their mosques
played imposing fountains where they made their ablutions
before entering there. Every city and town had its extensive
public bath system. There were three hundred public
baths in Cordoba alone. When the Moslems noticed that the
Christians were not addicted to public baths or much bath-
ing they formed the curious conception that the Christians
sprinkled themselves with water at baptism, blessed them-
selves with holy water on stated occasions, and thereafter
considered themselves absolved from all forms of ablution.
The Moslems' passion for washing the body left its
mark on the latter-day Spaniards, just as so many other
aspects of Moslem culture have done. The frequent washing
of hands, especially before meals, has become a confirmed
Spanish custom. Avoidance of the handling of food with
bare hands is another. In the story of Don Quixote, Sancho
Panza is constantly seen on the run to wash his hands before
sitting down to the table. Yet it has to be added that the
Holy Office, at the height of Spain's most fanatical era, con-
sidered bathing to be prima facie evidence of heresy.
While Spain's fields and valleys blossomed under the
Arabs, Spanish thought blossomed likewise. One might go
Eurther and say that under the stimuli of the new Spanish
environment Moslem thought itself entered a new phase of
flowering.
Islam seemed to need the Spanish adventure to enable
44 The Early Roots
it to crawl out of its own hard shell of dogmatism and fanati-
cism toward wider intellectual horizons. The problem that
confronted it was Mohammedan fatalism and narrowness
against freedom of the soul and the mind. The main line
along which this struggle was developed was the Islamic doc-
trine of the all-pervading presence of Allah. The rows of
orange trees in the courtyard of their Cordoba mosque, and
their prolongation by the rows of columns in the interior,
were symbolic of the presence of God within and without.
God's tabernacle to them was not confined to the sanctuary
of a temple or even to the temple itself. It was the whole
universe and what lay beyond it. This idea was conveyed in
the descriptive words by which they referred to the desert:
"Nothing present but Allah/'
("God dwelleth not in temples made with hands,"
preached Paul on Mars' Hill.)
Islam's Quest for Freedom of Mind
The Mohammedan faith had not yet reached its eight-
ieth birthday when it descended on Spain. Here for the
first time it came to grips with the older and more fecund
civilizations. Foremost among these was the Roman, with all
its massive and extensive constructions. Here too it came
to close quarters with Christian institutions and thought. Its
leaders saw that the content of Islamic doctrine, which mir-
rored Jewish monotheism and adhered to a tenet of predesti-
nation for the faithful believers in Allah, was poverty-
stricken by comparison with the new worlds of ideas that
confronted them now. Their struggles to renovate their
own theological system, and to adapt to their own uses the
intellectual currents of other civilizations, resulted in the
creation of a new world of philosophy which profoundly
pervaded the thinking of Christian and Jew. In a supple-
mental phase of this philosophical development, Jewish
scholars made rich contributions.
The outstanding note of the Moslem attitude toward
Christians was tolerance. They considered Christians to be
Spain Was a Western Arabia 45
heretics rather than infidels, because, after all, the Christians
had a holy book like themselves and believed in one God.
In their eyes heresy was not the "frightful crime, worthy of
death" that it was in the view of the Christian theologians,
both before and after the Moslem era in Spain. It is an odd
fact that in Spain heretics, including a heretic bishop, had
been put to death as long ago as the early Christian period,
as in the case of Bishop Priscillian, burned at the stake in
385-
Also tempering the Moslems' attitude toward Chris-
tianity was the fact that they considered the Koran an ex-
tension and perfection of the Jewish scriptures which the
Christians accepted, while the latters' Holy One, Jesus, was
an Islamic apostle. So, although they held the Christians to
be in grave error, they felt no religious compulsion to ex-
terminate them. Rather, they converted many Christians
to Islamic beliefs.
The struggle for wider horizons in the very first decades
of the occupation led to conflicts with Mohammedan ortho-
doxy, and this in turn led to a curious institution, brought
into being in defiance of the teaching of Mohammed: Mo-
hammedan monasteries. These monasteries, established in
faraway and isolated places, had the exact opposite purpose
of those of the Christians. Whereas the monks of the Chris-
tian monasteries aspired to the practice of dogma and of
holy obedience, the Moslem scholars who formed the monas-
tic bands did so with the idea of making warfare on im-
prisoning dogmas, and to practice what they considered to
be holy dissent.
They hoped that here, unmolested, their individual
minds would have freedom to take off on the farthest flights
of which the free human mind is capable. It was as though
they had taken to heart such aspirations and exhortations as
are to be found in both the Old and New Testaments: "Up-
hold me with thy free spirit/' in the Old, and "Quench not the
spirit," in the New. (Psalms, 51, 12, and I Thessalonians,
5, 19.) Here was the quintessence of individualism the
same individualism which cut so deeply into Spanish charac-
46 The Early Roots
ter that it remains there today. In a later phase of monas-
tic development an Arabian mystic, Ibn Arabi, elaborated
basic rules of monastic life which extended its influence to
the monasticism of the Christians. A latter-day Spanish
scholar of Arabic, Miguel Asin y Palacios, has traced the mo-
nasticism of the Carmelite monks to this source.
One of the earliest phases of the evolution of Moslem
thought under Spanish influences struck at the fatalistic
theology by denying that men were predestined to future
happiness or punishment according to whether or not they
were believers or infidels. One of the chief exponents of
this new theory was a mystic named Aben Massara, who
died in 931. He taught that although God foresaw the
future in its universal aspects he did not foresee those par-
ticular circumstances which shaped individual destinies.
This doctrine's importance consisted in that it broke
through the ice of a frozen rigidity. Aben Massara's writ-
ings had wide repercussions throughout the Moslem world,
extending even to India.
In Islamic thinking were also found such concepts as:
Science is the perception of the invisible world; the supreme
virtue is knowledge; dogma must be interpreted in the light
of reason rather than being literally accepted; knowledge
is a light coming directly from God. Ibn Hazm of C6rdoba
(d. 1064), who has been called the precursor of Protestant-
ism, made reason the judge and interpreter of both dogma
and revealed writings. Of this kind were the first explora-
tions of the Arabian mind in the new Moslem world of the
West.
Militant Religions
It must not be supposed that the rounded-out picture
of Moslem occupation was spread on a broad canvas of har-
mony and brotherly love. Eight centuries or even five con-
stitute a considerable time in the history of any country.
And so in the five to eight centuries that witnessed the
Spain Was a Western Arabia 47
Islamic domination of various parts of Spain there were
many periods of conflict and turbulence.
There was warfare between Christian and Moslem;
between Christian and the Mozarabs, who were Christians
also adhering to Rome but who retained the old Visigothic
ritual ascribed to St. Isadore, and whose relations with the
Moslems were uncommonly close. Both Christians and
Moslems from time to time made war on those numerous
but unfortunate Spaniards who had turned from Christian-
ity to the faith of the Prophet. The Christians hated them
because they were renegades, and the Moslems distrusted
them for the same reason. In Christian eyes they were
worthy of death because of their apostasy. By Moslem law
they would incur the death penalty if they turned away from
the Prophet.
But the bitterest conflicts arose between Moslem and
Moslem. It is common to suppose, even today, that the
Islamic world consists of a people strongly united. Nothing
could be more misleading. From the very death of the
Prophet the Islamic world was divided. Its inter-faith wars
were as devastating and cruel as the wars that have driven
Christian to annihilate Christian.
The great conflict of the Moslem world was the rivalry
between the Abbassides and the Ommiads. The Prophet
had hardly been laid in his tomb (632 A.D.) before these
powerful wings of the religion he had founded were at each
other's throats. The Moslems who came to Spain in 711
adhered to the Abbasside Caliphate at Damascus. The
Emirs of Cordoba were the Caliph's regents in Spain. They
had been established in their capital forty-five years when,
in 756, the Abbasside-Ommiad feud was carried to Spain.
The war was opened by a newcomer, Abd-er-Rahman, who,
having escaped from Damascus, had assembled an army in
North Africa and crossed over to the peninsula.
Abd-er-Rahman and his Ommiad army sped to Cor-
doba, routed the Abbasside Emir and set up the Ommiad
Caliphate, as rival to the Caliphate of Damascus. His
48 The Early Roots
scheme was to establish an Ommiad empire centered at Cor-
doba and spreading over North Africa. For two hundred
and fifty years under this Caliphate Cordoba grew in power
and splendor while Moslem regional capitals flourished in
all parts of Spain. Culture in its various forms flourished
too. But the Ommiad emphasis was war. Some of the
Caliphs were incredibly cruel. It is true that they were
often fighting for life, for the Caliphate was constantly beset
by conspiracies. They put down these conspiracies by the
savage law of the desert.
One of these Caliphs, Hakim I, stands out in particular
by his excesses. The leaders of the conspiracies were cer-
tain faqui, or holy men, who looked upon themselves as
instruments of Allah in visiting doom upon the Caliphs
because, by wine drinking and riotous living, they broke
the laws of the Prophet. At Cordoba was a great renegade
quarter, or suburb, called Secunda. The renegades had been
stirred up to revolt by a notorious and powerful faqui. In
808, Hakim ordered three hundred of the faqui seized and
crucified head downward along the bank of the river op-
posite the Grand Mosque. To this day the place is called
El Campo de la Verdad the Field of Truth. He burned
the suburb after rounding up fifteen thousand of its in-
habitants whom he deported to Africa. Most of them even-
tually made their way to the island of Crete. (It is believed
that El Greco, the Greek, had his origin there.)
On another occasion this same Hakim cunningly plot-
ted a cruel vengeance against the malcontent population of
Toledo. First he named a renegade Spaniard, a certain
Amrous, as governor. Amrous was in on the plot. His ap-
pointment was intended to placate the dissidents and win
their confidence. Amrous inveigled them into building an
alcazar for the city's embellishment. When it was finished
he organized a great feast to which he invited the first men
of the city several hundred of them. In order to reach
the Alcazar they had to pass along single file by the side of
a ditch filled with soft clay which had been used as mortar
during the work of construction. Near this spot the Caliph's
Spain Was a Western Arabia 49
soldiers were hidden. As the guests passed along the ditch
they were murdered one by one. Perhaps seven hundred
victims were murdered that night. This is the lowest figure
that the chroniclers mention; some place it as high as fifteen
hundred. Spaniards still call this terrible day the Day of
the Ditch.
The warring Moslems were head-hunters. This was
particularly true of the time of the Caliphs. After their ex-
peditions they gathered up the heads of the slain, and too
often cut off the heads of their prisoners as well. The heads
were carried back to the cities from which the troops had
set forth, and were put on display in huge pyramids. But
the whole Moslem world of Spain was far from assenting
to this sort of thing. This was the work of unlettered war-
riors who hailed from the desert and who could think only
in terms of war and its cruelties. They lived in another
world from that of the scholars and thinkers. While these
things went on, the Caliphs also busied themselves in the
promotion of culture and the building of libraries. The
chroniclers reported that one of the Cordoba Caliphs had a
library of 600,000 hand-written volumes gathered from all
corners of Islam.
It is small wonder that at length, in 1010, an army of
Christians took possession of Cordoba and drove out the
Caliphate.
It would be a mistake to think that the wars within
Spain were clear-cut issues between Moslems and Christians.
In most cases, especially after the fall of the Caliphate,
religion had little to do with them. They became struggles
for power between city and city, or between lord and his
neighbor the same kind of warfare that projected itself
into the totally Christianized medieval era. Almost invari-
ably in these small internal wars, Christian kings and nobles
made common cause with Moslems against another set of
Christian and Moslem potentates.
A cross-section of this sort of thing is to be found in
the story of the great Cid, originally a noble at the eleventh-
century court of Alfonso VI, the King of Castile. While
5 The Early Roots
still at the court he was sent on a mission to the Moslem
King of Seville, friend and ally of Alfonso. The Moslem
King of Seville was at war with the Moslem King of Gra-
nada, and the King of Granada was supported by a group
of Christian nobles, among them Count Garcia Ordonez,
friend of Alfonso. The Cid believed it his duty to aid Al-
fonso's ally, the King of Seville. Moving against Moslem
Granada he took some of the Christian nobles as prisoners.
Count Garcia Ordonez raised such a rumpus at the court
of Alfonso, that Alfonso thrust the Cid out of his court
and his kingdom. Thereafter the Cid fought with the
Moslem King of Saragossa against the Moslem King of
L6rida who had as his allies those Christian gentlemen, the
King of Aragon and the Count of Barcelona. Thus it was
that these mixed minor wars went on and on.
Sometimes there were real, if transitory, issues between
Christians and Moslems as when a certain grand vizier, a
kind of generalissimo, Almansor (d. 1002), began raiding
the Christian territory in northern Spain, and diverting
himself by carrying away the bells of their churches.
Such depredations irritated all Christians. Although
they were unable to maintain a permanent grip on Cordoba,
the event was important, for the Moslem power began to
slip from that day, although very gradually. With the
Caliph gone his governors in the chief cities set themselves
up as kings. There were seven such taifa kingdoms, as they
were called: Seville, Valencia, Granada, Murcia, Toledo,
Badajoz and Saragossa. Soon the Cid had installed himself
at Valencia while Alfonso VI had captured Toledo. The
other five kingdoms, sensing their danger, sent out an appeal
to their brethren in Africa.
Soon thereafter came two waves of invaders from Africa
to upset the modus Vivendi. The first invaders were known
as the Almoravides, who had gained the ascendancy in Mo-
rocco and there established an empire. In North Africa the
Almoravides had risen to power as the result of Islam's inces-
sant rivalries and jealousies. They were a narrowly puritan
and fanatical wing of the Islamic religion, and in 1086 they
Spain Was a Western Arabia 51
brought their fanaticism to Spain. The King of Seville,
Mu'tamid, had invited them over.
So they came under their leader and founder, Yusuf
ibn Tashfin. This horde of Berbers utterly destroyed the
army of the Castilian King, Alfonso VI. Yusuf installed
himself at Seville, loaded King Mu'tarnid with chains and
shipped him off to North Africa. History repeated itself
as the Almoravides began to take possession of Moslem
Spain, just as earlier Moslems had taken Spain from the
Christians. There was a three-cornered warfare among the
Almoravides, the firstcomers and the Christians.
The Almoravides' rule lasted for about half a century
before it was again challenged from North Africa and in
part overthrown. The challengers were a new rival sect,
the Almohades, that had risen to power while Yusuf was
establishing his mastery in Spain. Although they were
rather fanatical, they were at opposite poles from the fierce
Almoravides. Their leaders were idealists, philosophers,
scholars the Unitarians of the Mohammedan world. They
had a broad concept of the unity and the all-pervading
quality of God, and his total spiritualization. He had none
of those personal and anthropomorphic qualities attributed
to God by Christians and Jews.
The Almohades, under their leader Ibn Tumart, having
dethroned the Almoravide Emperors of Morocco in 1122,
began turning their attention to Spain, where Tumart and
his followers arrived in 1146. The Almohades were largely
welcomed both by persecuted Christians and by the old
Arabs. But after a quarter century of intermittent warfare,
the Almohades were the top Moslems in Spain and had also
annexed the island of Majorca. Yet even during this period
of battles they had begun to establish their high-level culture
and scholarship, which were to leave their impress in all parts
of Europe.
Except for certain turbulent interludes, such as the ones
just described, the general picture of these five to eight
centuries was one of Christians and Moslems living together
in relative peace and good understanding, and marrying
52 The Early Roots
into each other's families. While Mu'tamid was still King
o Seville, he gave one of his daughters in marriage to the
Christian King, Alfonso VI. At that period Moslems and
Christians each had a half share in the Christian cathedral
at Cordoba for purposes of worship. In the end the invaders,
who might have seized it outright, bought it from the
Christians as the site for their splendid mosque. Elsewhere
church buildings were shared by Moslems, Jews and Chris-
tians who, in their turns, used the buildings for worship
on Fridays, on Saturdays and on Sundays.
During this same period of Alfonso VI there occurred
an incident at Toledo which illustrates the compenetration
between the Castilian and the Moslem regimes. A certain
archbishop, Bernardo, had forcibly seized the mosque
from the Arabs and converted it into his cathedral. When
King Alfonso heard of this he hastened back to Toledo bent
upon punishing the archbishop and those who had acted
with him, and restoring the mosque. The Moslems pleaded
with the King to pardon the offense, but only to make sure
that their rights would be respected thereafter.
Moslem Culture in Full Flower
Beginning with the fall of the Caliphate after the first
capture of Cordoba in 1010, and thereafter for nearly three
centuries, there were two chief centers of scholarship, Seville
and Toledo. The first was dominantly Arabic, with a con-
siderable buttressing of Jewish philosophy. The second was
a composite intellectualism wherein Christian, Moslem and
Jew, as well as scholars from the West and the East, partici-
pated on equal terms.
Although the Christians, after their sacking of C<5rdoba,
were obliged to depart, and the Moslem rule continued there
for another two centuries (the Christians retook it in 1236),
the disgrace of its capture had eliminated it as the Moslem
capital of Spain. The capital was now transferred to Seville.
Instead of the Ernirs of Cordoba, and their successors, the
Caliphs, Seville was ruled by Moslem kings. Toledo, on the
Spain Was a Western Arabia 53
other hand, became from 1085 a de facto Christian capital,
where Alfonso VI who was the second of the Castilian kings
laid down the law.
Ibn Sina, whose name the Christians Latinized to Avi-
cenna, led the new vanguard of Arabic thinkers. He taught
that reason attains the objective of truth through divine
illumination of the mind and man's own observations and
experience, and that man receives his future rewards accord-
ing to the degree in which he approached truth through
these instrumentalities.
This was but a step to the philosophy of one of the
greatest of Arabic theologian-philosophers, Abu Bekr, whose
name abounds in the Latinized Christian writings as Avem-
pace. If the earlier mystics struck down fatalism, Avempace
struck down mysticism and exalted pure intellect. He ex-
pounded that man achieves freedom by obedience to reason.
He exalted human thought to the highest pinnacle. In the
sanctuary of thought alone, he taught, were to be found
all-pervading contentment and the nearest approximation to
truth. He said that the one and only Active Intellect was
God, and it was only possible for human intellect to achieve
excellence by working in union with this supreme Active
Intellect.
In the footsteps of Avempace followed Ibn Roshd,
Latinized Averroes, who was but a lad of twelve when Avem-
pace died in 1138. He discarded will as man's supreme at-
tribute and like Avempace placed intellect above all other
attributes. Pure thought, he avowed, was the essence of
God.
Avempace and Averroes became known all over Chris-
tian Europe. Their doctrines were warmly debated in Chris-
tian circles, and strongly colored the Christian thought of the
times. These two thinkers, and a third, formed a triumvirate
of advanced Moslem theologian-philosophers. The third was
Ibn Tofail, Latinized Abubacer (d. 1185), a contemporary
of Averroes. His well of inspiration was Aristotle. Plato
and Aristotle were familiar to all the advanced Arabic
thinkers, but as an Aristotelian scholar, Abubacer stood at
54 The Early Roots
the top o the list in the estimation of his contemporaries.
Like his Greek mentor he was a foremost exponent of
an aristocratism of thought. He believed that only a select
number of men were capable of those philosophical explora-
tions by which truth was approached, and that trying to
teach the many to think as a way to apprehending truth
was a sheer waste of time. Consequently, he said, the vast
majority of men needed a religion which played on their
emotions and kept them contented. What he meant, of
course, was that religion had a double function. It had the
social function of containing the masses. But for the elite
who needed no such sedation, it had the function of guiding
man's mind in the direction of truth and of joining man's
intellect to pure intellect as being the essence of God.
This doctrine of an aristocracy of the mind deserves to
be noticed more closely for it has been the foundation stone
of Spanish education down to the present the stone which
Spanish liberals have been trying to pry loose from the
hardpan in which it has become so deeply imbedded.
The Seville government feared the unsettling effects of
too much thinking, or too close scrutiny of the Koran's inner
philosophy by the mass of the people. At the same time
it looked with benignity on the intellectual explorations of
scholars. Faced with this dilemma, it arrived at an arrange-
ment with scholars: They were free to indulge in their in-
terpretations of the sacred Islamic writings, or to pursue
their explorations in the empire of thought to their hearts*
content, providing they did not pass the fruits of their in-
tellectual activities out among the people.
As to the Koran and dogma as Averroes put it so
agreeably to the Moslem rulers they had two aspects, mean-
ing and interpretation. The literal meaning was to be fed
to the faithful in general, while the interpretation was to
be reserved for scholars. However, if the scholars decided
that certain passages of revealed religion were symbolical or
stated in parables rather than having a literal meaning, they
were free to make the appropriate explanations to the com-
mon herd.
Spain Was a Western Arabia 55
Almost without exception the world of scholars accepted
the main theme of this doctrine. Their grounds, however,
were philosophical rather than political or social, as was the
case with the rulers. They held that an exalted spiritual life
and the perception of truth were beyond the reach of the
multitude.
There was a saving democratic aspect to this principle of
the aristocracy of the mind. Men of humble social position
were not barred from admission to the privileged circles.
Mental equipment, not wealth or high social status, counted.
If a humble or even an ignorant man showed an eagerness
and an aptitude for the questing of truth, he could qualify as
one of the elite.
The outcome of this line of reasoning on the part of the
philosopher, and the participation therein of the political
authorities, was a doctrine of aristocratic anarchy which has
its repercussions in Spain to this day. Men of superior minds
needed no restraints on their conduct. They had emanci-
pated themselves from the shackles of man-made law, for
they obeyed the superior laws of their reason. Laws were
intended to keep the masses in check. Only the vulgar and
inferior classes were bound to obey them.
I have frequently observed the rebound of this kind
of reasoning on the Spain of this day. If you stated this fact
concretely the Spaniard would vigorously deny its existence.
It was an attitude rather than an expressed position, and it
seemed to make itself felt below as well as above. It appeared
to express itself in the formula that only inferior persons
were meticulous about obeying the law unless it was con-
venient to do so. There was severity for the common man
who was remiss in compliance; indulgence for those privi-
leged individuals who sidestepped the provisions of the
codes.
Another product of intellectual aristocratism affected
education. Quite simply, it considered that education, or at
least more than a very small dose of it, was bad for the people
and tended to create internal unrest. Outside of the charmed
circles, and of certain other upper-class levels, such as of
56 The Early Roots
ruling officials, education was in a state of decay. This same
theme has run through the whole history of education in
Spain and still is observable. It is one of the obstacles which
modern liberals have constantly sought to remove. Some-
times, for brief periods, they did so with partial success.
Although Seville was the center of Islam's intellectual
activities, other centers of scholarship existed at Granada,
Almeria, Valencia and Murcia. While this rapid survey has
placed emphasis on the advancement of philosophical
thought, it is important to say that Moslem scholarship em-
braced also the arts and the sciences. These sciences included
astronomy, geography, medicine and mathematics. Arabian
poetry was also in flower.
The Arabs further produced a considerable quantity of
narrative prose which was the forerunner of the later narra-
tive literature of Spaniards.
Toledo, the Scholars' Metropolis
But it was the Christian metropolis of Toledo that, in
approximately this same period, gave to the sciences a special
attention. Side by side with such study, scientists delved into
the writings of the ancients and preserved for the modern
world a wealth of other-day literature which might otherwise
have been lost, if not by the disappearance of manuscripts,
at least by neglect. Even though Toledo was a Christian
capital it was in no sense an exclusively Christian center of
learning. For here Arab and Jew played dominant roles.
Knowledge and philosophy were pursued in terms of maxi-
mum universality and tolerance. The Catholic Kings, from
Alfonso VI to Alfonso X, who was called Alfonso the Sage,
encouraged the greatest freedom of intercourse among schol-
ars of different races and creeds. Alfonso the Sage, in fact,
forbade Christians to show discrimination toward non-Chris-
tians. They must all work together as brethren.
Toledo became one of the Western world's greatest
emporiums of scholarship. Thither students flocked from
the West and the East; from London and Paris as well as
Spain Was a Western Arabia 57
from Damascus and Cairo; also from Rome and the German
centers o learning.
Their principal object was to study the Greek philoso-
phers, especially Plato and Aristotle. Arabic had become the
medium for the transmission of Greek thought. The Arabs
had translated these writings, and outside their translations
the Christian world had almost no knowledge of them. From
the Arabic they were retranslated into Latin, the language of
Western scholarship. It is to the Arabs that the Christian
world must offer its thanks for the impenetration of Greek
philosophy into their own schools of thought. However,
Greek poetry and drama had to seek other avenues of com-
munication with the West. They were alien to Arabian
theology and the Arabian manner of thinking, wherefore
they held no attraction for the Arabian translators.
The writings of outstanding Christian scholars, based
on Greek and Arabic speculations, became standard
texts throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. So im-
portant was Arabian scholarship considered that Roger
Bacon, who had studied Arabic, counseled the study thereof
by all Christian scholars.
The tower of light among the Jewish scholars was Moses
ben Maimun, better known as Maimonides, born at Cordoba
in 1135. Though a Jew he was also a Spaniard. He has
been termed the greatest of all Spanish philosophers, whether
of his time or our own. The core of his teaching consisted
in his efforts to solve the conflicts between dogma and reason.
In the domain of reason he followed the trails blazed by
Aristotle. He maintained that there was no such thing as
a conflict between religion and science. In the world of
religion, he said, the word of God was supreme. But in the
natural world, reason predominated. The apparent conflict,
he taught, was due to the fact that their respective natures
were misunderstood.
Maimonides delved into the relationship between reason
and divine revelation and dug deeply into questions of
Creation and the relationship of God to the universe. He
developed a theory of God as the supreme artist. His writings
58 The Early Roots
were one of the rich sources upon which the Christian,
Thomas Aquinas, who was bom shortly after Maimonides'
death, drew inspiration for his philosophical system, which
has since become the backbone of Roman Catholic theology.
Of this kind was the world of scholarship which flour-
ished in Islamic capitals, and the more than half-Islamic city
of Toledo, for something like four hundred years. And
such was the light from the Western Arabia of Spain that
cast its glow on Spain's later history. It could not be ex-
tinguished by the subsequent efforts of trono y altar to
strangle freedom of intellect and silence the free expression
of thought.
6 The World of Don Quixote Lives On
Nothing could be more enlightening than to observe
Spain's human comedy through the eyes of Miguel de
Cervantes and his immortal creations, Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza. Many things Spanish have changed since his
time the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries
but the race is the same. Cervantes not only presented to us
the whole panorama of Spain as it was in his day, but the
Spanish panorama of our day so far as it is affected by the
people who live in it. As the traveler moves about Spain he
is astonished by the continuously recurring incidence of those
same traits of character he encountered in the world of Don
Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho, his escudero or shield-
bearer.
In Chapter 4 we saw something of those qualities: strong
individuality, natural courtesy, a high sense of dignity, sim-
plicity of behavior, and so on. Of course Spain has its
picaresque world too, the world in which abound such char-
acters as the carterista, or pickpocket, the wily perpetrators of
The World of Don Quixote Lives On 59
the "Spanish prisoner" swindle; the sleight-of-hand trick-
sters; the sly petty thieves who will steal your car tire or
your garbage pail from under your eyes, or the chairs and
the tables from in front of the furniture store. But even
these kinds of offenses are peculiarly Spanish; in them are
elements of slyness, of nimbleness of mind and of limb, of
the interplay of wits, of humor and mockery. Curiously, one
seldom hears of the out-and-out thug, of crimes that depend
on brutality or on a mind set for violence. Crimes of violence
are mostly of the kind Spaniards call "social offenses," that
is, the violence of revolutionary movements.
Modern adventures also have other and more agreeable
rapport with the Spanish world as Cervantes revealed it to
us. On a weekend I went mountain climbing with some
Spanish friends. We made our headquarters at an unused
masia, or rambling stone farmhouse, which was in charge of
a keeper whom we had come to know rather well. He was
one of the most amiable and mild-mannered of men. He
had served a prison term for murder, having killed a man
in a moment of anger; the inevitable pardon had come and
now he was free. It is an odd fact that murderers are fre-
quently meek and self-effacing persons.
Near the masia we came "upon two groups of Spaniards,
each at its own campfire and busy making paellas that
succulent dish of rice steamed and parboiled in oil, savory
sauces and an assortment of meats, all combined with con-
summate artistry. Both groups had an assortment of sartens>
or frying pans, the largest close to a yard in diameter, into
which went the rice, with smaller pans for the sauces and
the meats. One group consisted of anarcho-syndicalists, and
the other of church-minded Carlists. They were the bitterest
ideological enemies.
When we came up wishing them good appetite, as is
the custom, and being asked to join them, according to
protocol, and courteously declining, as we were expected to
do, we perceived that they were engaged in a barbed argu-
ment, not about anarcho-syndicalist theories of direct action
6o The Early Roots
versus Carlist traditionalism bound to the past, but about
the relative merits of paella valenciana according to whether
it issued from anarcho-syndicalist or Carlist frying pans.
The syndicalists insisted that in the matter of the sauces
the Carlists knew nothing at all. And without making a
sauce how could they ever make a paella? Carlists, they
taunted, were dreamers who shed tears over the past; paellas
are things of the present to be made to the accompaniment
of laughter and a sense of reality, and of talk as well seasoned
and picante as the sauce for the rice. On the other hand,
they reasoned, syndicalists were artisans who believed in
living this life to the full and who, having ferreted out the
secret of sauces, had the skill to apply them as Carlists had
not.
Here was the world of Cervantes all over again. The
knights of that world who could draw swords over a near-
dogma or the style of church music, or defend a bridge for
no other reason than that it pleased them to defend it, had
passed on their flair for the whimsical to such men as these.
In one of Don Quixote's adventures a lawyer and a student
fight a ridiculous duel because the student, Corchuelo, had
questioned the value of the sword as a weapon of combat.
The swordsman gave Corchuelo Little Cork a lesson he
never forgot.
One must approach the world of Cervantes with an
understanding of the Spaniard's fondness for double mean-
ings and his expertness at wrapping them up in attractive
packages of bland wit and deep-cutting irony. It is a talent
developed through their long necessity of weighing their
words, of avoiding too realistic statements and of speaking
with caution, the outcome of the inquisitorial and censorious
processing of thought by throne and altar. None is more
adept in this art of double-talking than Cervantes and his
wandering knight.
The device of having his say from behind a silken and
translucent curtain of double-entendre was particularly use-
ful to Cervantes in times when an unguarded word might
bring the Inquisition's displeasure upon him. Let it be re-
The World of Don Quixote Lives On 61
called that the sixteenth century was filled with the smoke
of the bonfires wherein heretics were sent to their doom. Day
and night during this century Charles V and his son, Philip
II, worked at "purifying the blood/' and at re-establishing
"the old-time Christian religion." Philip II, in fact, cele-
brated his ascent to the throne of his father by a horrifying
auto-da-fe.
Cervantes, who made it clear that he was a good ortho-
dox Catholic, was careful never to hold religion up to mock-
ery or scorn; upon occasion he expounded faultless theology.
Even as things stood, the Inquisition was not too happy
about him. It did not, for instance, like the idea of his
knight making a rosary out of his shirttail. The romance
abounds in such stories as that which shows Quixote going
forth to give battle to a procession of pilgrims. "You are
making war on our holy religion," Sancho Panza, somewhat
frightened, admonishes him. To which he replies: "No,
not on religion; I offer battle to miscreants in order to
rescue a maid in distress," so giving all to understand that
he is fulfilling the tenets of his most sacred faith.
This encounter occurred while the wandering knight
and Sancho, together with the village priest, a barber and
some others, were traveling together through the mountains
toward home. Suddenly around a corner of the mountain,
coming toward them, they descried the procession of dis-
ciplinantes, or men undergoing penitential discipline, masked
and wearing white hoods. On a litter, a guard of honor was
carrying the figure of a miraculous Virgin clothed all in
black. The religious procession moved along toward a hermi-
tage where it was proposed to implore the intercession of the
Virgin for the blessing of much-needed rain.
You may see this world of the past in the Spanish world
of the present. The procession of villagers and of priests
reciting litanies, moving toward some distant hermitage to
petition for rain, is as familiar today as at that time. I
recall the story that was told to me in one of the villages, in
the year that it reputedly happened, concerning a pilgrim-
age to a shrine of the Virgin to ask for much-needed rain.
62 The Early Roots
As the story went, the Virgin did not seem to under-
stand what was wanted, for the rain did not come. The
villagers then made another procession and placed the Vir-
gin in a well so that she could comprehend their necessity.
She did, and it rained. It rained torrents, and the rain did
not stop.
"Now," thought the villagers, "the Virgin thinks that
because we placed her in a well we must need a great deal of
rain. Perhaps if we put her in the baker's oven she will
know that once more we wish dry and warm weather/'
So the Virgin was again taken out of her shrine with
due ceremony and placed in the oven. She was quick to take
the hint and sent dry weather without delay. She was im-
mediately taken out of the oven and put back in her shrine.
Some of the villagers wagged their heads and said it was a
shabby trick to play on her; it would have been enough
merely to have placed her in the warm room where the
baker kneaded his loaves.
I tell this tale as it was imparted to me without vouch-
ing for all the particulars. Its significance lies in the sense
of humor with which it was told, and in the fact that Span-
iards could treat aspects of their religion with smiles, while
not losing reverence for it. So it was in the world of the
wandering knight. Indeed, this tale as it stands might well
have appeared among the Quixotic adventures. The people
who could think like that were the same as those in the
world of Cervantes.
As in the escapades of the knight, there are rich veins
of meaning in the story of a violent and for the knight a
disastrous encounter with these disciplinantes. The Span-
iard, who is as ready to divine double meanings as to em-
ploy them, could not fail to understand that Cervantes was
casting aspersions, not on religion, but on an excess of
ritualistic ceremony.
Cervantes, like most Spanish Catholics, even today, had
his own standards of selection and reverence in matters
religious. The influence of Erasmus, who believed there was
The World of Don Quixote Lives On 63
too wide a gap between Catholic preaching and practice,
and who had an almost Lutheran disdain for elaborate
ritual (a disdain, incidentally, reflected in the separatist
Pilgrims who fled to Plymouth a century later), had per-
meated to Spain. Cervantes knew his Erasmus and had par-
taken of his heterodoxy. Indeed we are told that without
Erasmus there would have been no Don Quixote, or perhaps
no Cervantes as we have come to know him.
Cervantes, like many of his countrymen in his time and
our own, was a quasi-heretic in the sense that he accepted
what seemed good in his religion, put his tongue in his
cheek with respect to the rest, and was at pains not to quarrel
with the church. Like the modern Spanish liberals, he per-
ceived what has aptly been called "the fatal effects of reli-
gious fanaticism."
The priests who in one way or another participate in
the mad knight's adventures are for the most part amiable
and well-meaning and sometimes learned characters, like the
cura y or village priest, who is greatly worried about Quixote's
"enchantment," and goes to the length of having him put in
a cage while asleep that he may be hauled back to his home
in an oxcart and so saved from some fatal disaster.
Notwithstanding, Cervantes showed himself to have the
soul of the present-day anticlerical Spaniard who rejects
clerical authoritarianism and who scoffs at the type of priest
who is lacking in suitable zeal, or in the modesty becoming
his calling. This is strikingly shown in the adventure of the
knight and his squire in the castle of the duke and the
duchess. Seated with these three at a table is a pompous
canon who has ingratiated himself into the favor of the two
noble persons. Cervantes wastes no time in introducing him
in terms of unaccustomed asperity. The ecclesiastical person-
age, he says, is "One of those who wish to dominate the
households of princes; one of those who, not having been
born into the nobility, presume to teach them how to be-
have; one of those who wish that the grandeur of high per-
sonages be measured by the measuring tape of their narrow
64 The Early Roots
minds; one of those who, wishing to make a parade of their
authority before those whom they govern, end by making
them miserable."
But it is a modest layman, the caballero in the green
cloak, in whom Cervantes embodies the spirit of unassuming
and practical Christianity as an antidote to religious fanati-
cism. He is a gentleman who, as between devout and pro-
fane literature, prefers the profane because it gives him
pleasure. He likes to dine with honest and sensible neigh-
bors; at his table he permits no scandalous gossip and does
not thrust his nose into the affairs of others; he is generous
with the poor but does his good works in secret, "so that
hypocrisy and vainglory shall find no place in my heart."
He uses his influence to bring enemies to a good understand-
ing with each other. He goes to mass every morning. Sancho
Panza is so stricken with admiration for el caballero del
verde gabdn that he kisses his foot, remarking, "You are the
first saint I have seen in my life!"
I have often seen this spirit of the unassuming Christian
layman among Spaniards.
One Sunday I talked with a woman in black, as simple
and unpretentious women are accustomed to dress, who was
taking the sun on a bench near the village church.
"Your town has a very beautiful church/' I remarked.
"I suppose you have been there today."
"No," said the woman, "not today but tomorrow. The
cura tells us we must go to church every Sunday or go to
hell when we die. So I go to church every Monday when
no one is there. And the good Dios tells me he will not
send me to hell.
"I have no need to go to church on the Sunday so
everyone can see how I pray and what dresses I wear. On
Sunday I go to my own little altar that I keep in my house,
and there I talk to El Senor. Just I and the Lord talk
together."
Don Quixote, far from being a mere madman fighting
windmills, or fighting lions whom he considers to be de-
mons in earthly form, is a caballero who has taken the war-
The World of Don Quixote Lives On 65
path in behalf o the native Spanish virtues, and particularly
that of intellectual honesty which enables men to see things
as they are.
When he battles windmills and dares lions to mortal
combat which the lions disdainfully refuse he satirizes the
vice into which many of his fellows have fallen of wasting
their energies in their struggles against unrealities. Once
when Sancho is astonished to observe that his senor no
longer refers to the shabby inn where they are lodged as a
castle, he rejoices that his master at length sees things as
they are. His rejoicing is premature, for soon the knight is
again looking at things as his imagination pleases to picture
them.
The theme of the Moslems as barbarians who were the
incarnation of evil is as prevalent in Spain today as it was
in the time of Cervantes, even though in fact they have long
become Spaniards with the barest trace of Berber or Arab
blood in their veins. They were the much-needed whipping
boy.
(Since the overthrow of the Republic the dictatorship
has attempted to provide a substitute whipping boy in the
person of liberals, especially those who believe in republics.)
In various parts of Spain today, as in the play of the
puppets, legends are cherished in which the Moriscos are
made to play villainous parts, and usually the town that
maintains such a legend appoints a day of fiesta when cos-
tumed figures bring it to life with drama and dance. At
Berga, in the Catalan region, I witnessed the three-day batum
in commemoration of the valorous deed of the drummer boy
who saved that comarca from the barbarous rascals. The
story was that a horde of Moors had approached the town
which was quite undefended. The boy took his drums and
repaired to the mountains, and gave the drums such a
booming and banging that they echoed and rebounded from
the side of one mountain to another. The Moors, believing
that a multitudinous army was prepared to give them a warm
reception, retired precipitately and the town was saved.
66 The Early Roots
It seemed that half the town was in fantastic garb.
The Moors were there beating about with their scimitars
and being beaten in turn by the valiant Christians armed
with good Christian swords. The costuming of the Moors
was grotesque. Some of them were overstuffed figures, and
some were giants, due to the assistance of stilts hidden under
their costumes. Some of the mummers singled me out for
their courteous attentions, not as a Moor, but apparently
as a stranger who was presumably a good Christian gentle-
man come to offer assistance.
In all of the escapades of Don Quixote, there runs a
broad streak of self-criticism. Spaniards are often taken
to task by Spaniards themselves for being, like the knight,
wise and tempered in discourse but stark mad when in
action.
One of Don Quixote's adventures is a rollicking satire
on the Spaniard's passion for oratory and for rotiind con-
versation. It seems that two town councilors, politically
ambitious, have a remarkable gift for windy speechmaking.
One has lost his ass in the mountains. Councilor No. 2
offers to help the first retrieve the freedom-loving beast, and
so they set off for the mountains. When they reach the place
where the ass had been sighted, No. 2 says to the owner:
"Look, amigo, I am a marvelous hand at braying and I
am sure that if I go along braying while I search for the ass
he will answer me. It would be helpful if you too knew how
to bray just a little."
"Bray just a little!" exclaims the owner. "In the matter
of braying I play second fiddle to no one, not even the whole
world of natural-born asses/'
Then there follows a side-splitting braying match as
the regidores wind about through the mountains. They bray
so well that each takes the other for the lost animal and they
bray to each other. The ass itself does not respond.
On their return the regidores indiscreetly tell their fel-
low townsmen about their adventure. The story gets around
to the neighboring aldeas and pueblos whose inhabitants
begin to make sport of the regidores and their fellow towns-
The World of Don Quixote Lives On 67
men. Every time the neighboring townsmen meet one of
them they break forth in braying. The insulted townsmen
take to arms in defense of their dignity. They adopt a banner
adorned with the head of an ass. Don Quixote notices that
the banner bears the word alcaldes, meaning mayors, and re-
marks that "it seems that the talented men were no mere
councilmen, but alcaldes."
"No/' comments Sancho. "No doubt they brayed so
well as councilors that the people chose them as their
mayors/* (It was not uncommon for a town to have two
alcaldes.)
Once again the situation and its characters are reflected
in the Spain of today. I have observed instances of one town
being given a bad name by its neighbors, and of the conse-
quent reproach reflected on such a town's residents. Thus at
Montblanch, in the Catalan region, to say that a man comes
from neighboring Vimbodi has unpleasant implications be-
cause of the role played by Vimbodi folk in sacking the great
monastery of Poblet, the Catalan counterpart of the Escurial,
during the Carlist wars of 1835. The cause was the numerous
grievances between the peasants thereabouts and the monks.
After a hundred years the great monastery still lies partly
in ruins: And when the people mockingly say that a man
comes from Vimbodi it is equivalent to saying that he is a
kind of un-Christian barbarian.
Individuals in a town are also singled out for nicknames.
This is a very usual occurrence. Often persons and their
families are known only by the apodo given to the head of
the family, and this nickname is set down in legal docu-
ments. Almost every man who is anybody in a town has his
nickname. Usually these apodos are inoffensive and tinged
with good will and humor.
I came to a town where a solemn and rather authori-
tarian gentleman was called El Obispo, the Bishop, and
another rather benevolent and religious-minded old man was
known as El Papa, the Pope. You may find such apodos as
El Sabio, the scholar; El Luchador, the fighter; El Vencidor,
the conqueror; El Hablador, the talker, and so on.
68 The Early Roots
I imagine that if Sancho Panza lived in a Spanish town
today he would probably be called El Hablador, or perhaps
El FilosofO; the philosopher, for like so many present-day
Spaniards he loved to talk and to philosophize, so much so
that it was part of his agreement with the knight, who had
reproached him for much talking, that he should be allowed
to talk as much as he liked.
Occasionally you will find in a town a man whose nick-
name brands him with opprobrium,, If a man were called
El Cobarde, the coward, or El Carterista, the pickpocket,
for instance, he would likely have to leave the town for parts
where his apodo would not follow him. This is an effective
expedient for keeping the local mores at a desirable level.
Sancho is the counterpart of another type of person all
too common in Spain, the illiterate. As I went about Spain
and talked with peasants and workers who were unable to
read, I found that being illiterate was far from synonymous
with ignorance. A man may be unable to read and still be
better informed concerning the events of the day than a man
who has waded through many-paged newspapers, some of
which seem to be primarily entertainment enterprises.
I have always found the most unpretending peasant or
worker ready and able to enter into intelligent conversation.
This is more than I can say of many of my own American
countrymen, or of many of the inhabitants of city and coun-
try in England. One aspect of Spanish background that
creeps into conversation is that a philosophy of life has been
handed down to unlettered people from past generations,
and they live in their past as much as in their present, or
rather understand the truth that a people's past is part of
their present. It is astonishing to observe how near to them
their historical past continues to be.
There is no greater mistake than to confound the in-
ability to read and write with ignorance, with a want of
cerebral activity, or of the quality called spirituality; con-
versely it is wrong to assume that these are necessary qualities
of literacy. The founder of Christianity was probably illiter-
The Soil of Spanish Democracy Is Deep 69
ate. When he went up to the temple to teach, "The Jews
marvelled, saying, 'How knoweth this man letters, having
never learned?' "
Cervantes himself knew this truth when he turned
Sancho Panza into philosopher, theologian and sage with
somewhat more wisdom than his more literate master.
Thus it is that the profoundest truths are hidden be-
neath Quixotic absurdities, and that Cervantes portrays the
eternal Spaniard as he was in his day, and as he is in our
own. He lets us see that the knight and his squire were
Spaniards because they could be nothing else.
7 The Soil of Spanish Democracy Is Deep
How deep is the soil into which Spanish democracy
sinks its roots? That transient and superficial observer who
wrote in an American publication that Spain offers "thin
soil for democracy" was, like many another of his kind, badly
informed. The regrettable thing is that such statements, like
that other hackneyed charge that Spaniards are unfit to
govern themselves, are no better than advertising catch lines
which have no relation to the facts but are designed to mis-
lead the unwary. It is all the more regrettable when they
mislead honest seekers for information about Spain.
The introduction told how two eminent historians, one
of Harvard and the other of Cambridge University, recorded
the fact that the soil of popular government was richer and
deeper in Spain than anywhere else in Europe.
The Moslem world still cast its shadow over Spain when,
in 1 188, a rising Christian kingdom, Le6n, wrung the Spanish
counterpart of the future English Magna Carta from Al-
fonso XL Alfonso, King of Castile, was also King of Leon
and Navarre. Following the action of Leon, the Cortes of
70 The Early Roots
Castile ratified the pact between the nobility and other repre-
sentative forces of Castile, on the one hand, and the King, on
the other hand, in 1299.
The first Cortes or parliament in Spain dates from at
least 1162 perhaps earlier. This was the Cortes of Huesca,
the Aragonese capital. It was composed of four estates, the
prelates, the nobles, the knights and the townsmen. (France
and England had only three estates at this time.) The Cortes
of Castile and the neighboring states omitted the knights.
The Aragon Cortes was thus more than a century earlier
than the English Parliament.
It is worth noting that the informing principle of the
Spanish Magna Carta was incorporated in our own fifth and
fourteenth American constitutional amendments: "nor shall
any person be deprived of life, liberty or property without
due process of law."
But the idea of political democracy was already ancient
history in Spain by the time of the parliamentary assemblies.
They were preceded by a long record of democratic experi-
ence. While the idea had a variety of origins in the regions
and kingdoms of Spain, the point of departure was always
the same: the people were the source of political authority.
The development of political freedom in Spain may be
followed through a number of phases corresponding to differ-
ent historical periods. The first of these phases preceded the
rise of the various Christian kingdoms in the eleventh cen-
tury. It extends from pre-Roman times on through the
periods of Roman, Visigoth and Moslem, within a frame-
work of Celt-Iberian culture.
The second phase extends through the rise of the Chris-
tian kingdoms to the era of political centralization, involv-
ing the expulsion of Moslem and Jew, which began in the
last half of the fifteenth century (1469) under Fernando and
Isabel who, by uniting the crowns of Castile and Aragon
through marriage, claimed sovereignty over all Spain.
Other phases may be traced after this period, as will be
seen in a discussion of Spain under the "Catholic Sovereigns"
The Soil of Spanish Democracy Is Deep 71
and the two dynasties that followed them, that of the Haps-
burgs out of Austria, and of the Bourbons out of France.
To turn now to the first and second phases previously
mentioned:
First Phase: A Fusion of Early Cultures
The taproots of Spanish political democracy were
deeply sunk in the soil of the municipal regimes. These
date back to Iberian times with their elected town councils.
As they developed and came under the moderating influence
of the aldeanos, or townsmen, they were reminiscent of New
England's boards of selectmen and town meetings. These
Spanish town councils predated Greek, Carthaginian and
Roman colonizations.
The democratic spirit which they engendered was car-
ried to Rome by a Spaniard, Seneca of Cordoba, who taught
the principle of the natural equality of men endowed with
a common reason, which opened the widest possible vistas
for the powers of the mind through education. Seneca lived
in the time of Christ and taught these things in the first
decade of our era.
He expounded the Stoic philosophy, best known to us
through the writings of that other Spaniard, the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius; it taught the equality of men and the prin-
ciple of the divine in man lighting man's reason. These-
principles abound in such counsel as from Marcus Aurelius:
"Remember to retire into this little territory of thy own,
and above all do not distract or strain thyself but be free,
and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen,
as a mortal." Also ". . . hold good to consist in the dis-
position to justice and the practice of it."
These municipal regimes were implacably independent
and in high degree self-contained. The town governments
included the surrounding areas, much as today when these
areas are called circunscripciones. They were communal
enterprises. In many parts of Spain, particularly in the
72 The Early Roots
Pyrenees areas, the comunidades survive to this day. Their
most important feature was control of the forests and agri-
cultural and grazing lands for the benefit of the inhabitants.
This system may still be observed in the Pyrenees.
Under the Roman policy of chartered towns the munici-
pal authority was strengthened. It continued to flourish
under Visigoth rule which superseded the Roman about the
year 400. The municipal arrangement was strengthened
again and perpetuated by the Visigoth pattern of govern-
ment which was based on elected chiefs, or kings, instead of
the dynastic system.
During the Visigoth and the early Christian periods
other democratic factors stepped in, such as the struggle for
freedom of worship. In the year 385, when Christian rule
was getting a foothold under Roman protection, the struggle
for the right to think independently was already going on in
Roman Catholic Christianity. In that year Spain witnessed
the burning of its first ' 'heretic" that Bishop Priscillian who
had proclaimed the right of the mind to search for religious
truth, and who was so original as to admit ritualistic danc-
ing into the church. (In Seville cathedral a ritualistic dance
is still performed before the high altar on certain occasions.)
Arab and Berber and Spanish-born Moslem found no
reason to interfere with such community rule. The Moslem
believers were almost all Spaniards themselves because their
men married with Spanish women exclusively. In ten gen-
erations or so the non-Spanish strain would be less than one-
thousandth of one per cent. Yet this stock was in Spain for
about thirty generations. In Moslem-ruled towns the inhab-
itants became dominantly Moslem. There the democratic
idea found strengthening in the Moslem doctrine that all
men were equal in the sight of the law and God still a
heresy in the prevailing concept which had already strayed
far from St. Paul's sermon to the Athenians that God had
made "of one blood all nations of men."
The Soil of Spanish Democracy Is Deep 73
Democracy's Second Phase: The Rise
of the Christian Kingdoms
Communal, or municipal, self-rule entered a new and
more vigorous phase with the rise of the Christian kingdoms
after the downfall of the Caliphate of Cordoba in the early
eleventh century (1010), and the beginning of the conquests
by the small Christian states which were assuming the im-
portance of kingdoms. Toledo, we recall, was taken in 1085
by Alfonso VII, whose father had founded the independent
kingdom of Castile, which also ruled over the kingdoms of
Leon and Navarre. The Christians were now encroaching
on Moslem-held areas. Cordoba was a Moslem stronghold
once more, and Moslems also held the capitals of Seville and
Granada.
The Christian kings, as they extended their rule, in-
augurated a system of fueros, or charters of rights, liberties
and privileges for the various towns, as once the Romans
had done. These charters differed from pueblo to pueblo
and from region to region. They reflected the manners,
thinking, the customs, the needs, and the systems of justice
and law which had had their individual growths in the
particular localities. Never was there a better exemplifica-
tion of the maxim that custom makes the law.
The popular election of alcaldes, or mayors, with their
councilors, and community control of lands, forests, harvests,
commerce, industry, local defense, and so on, were basic
features of these charters. The quasi-independent communi-
ties established their own systems of law and maintained
their own local militias. Often they issued their own money.
This happened again during the Civil War.
Some fueros went so far as to make towns sanctuaries
of safety for fugitive slaves or bondsmen "who suffered mis-
treatment under a bad master/* In certain cases equal rights
were granted to Moslems, Christians and Jews. A curious
development was the type of fuero which gave some com-
munities the right to choose their own lord and to change
74 The Early Hoots
him for another if he was not satisfactory. Another custom
was that of dividing the land every year.
The consequence of this lengthy experience of munici-
pal freedom was that the pueblos., or towns with their sur-
rounding communities, which often included a number of
aided*, or villages, became like so many self-contained small
countries. The strong sense of local quasi-sovereignty con-
tinues to exist as an inseparable part of Spanish life.
Time and again, as the kings became more powerful,
some of them the later centralizing kings tried to destroy
the municipal liberties, but they never succeeded. But even
before this centralizing period people fought fiercely against
certain overlords, often ecclesiastical personages, in defense
of their fueros. At Santiago de Compostela, in the eleventh
century, the townsfolk started a bonfire in the archbishop's
palace and obliged the prelate to flee for his life. They then
seized the daughter of Alfonso VI and stripped her naked
because she had sided with the archbishop in trespassing on
their rights. Thus was established a very early precedent
for the periodical practice of firing ecclesiastical edifices in
retaliation for grievances.
This helps to explain how it is that popular feelings
of patriotism still are focused in the pueblos rather than in
the centralized government. The Spaniard makes a distinc-
tion between the prevailing government and the nation the
whole Spanish people. These distinctions are subtle but
real and can best be understood by being observed in prac-
tice. The Spaniard speaks with great affection of "mi
pueblo." He has great pride in his "race" as a Spaniard. He
annually celebrates "the feast of the race."
Perhaps a comparison could be made between the Amer-
ican's concept of his sovereignty as a citizen and the Span-
iard's concept of the sovereignty, or at least quasi-sovereignty,
of his pueblo in national affairs. This idea of sovereignty
was exercised when, on April 12, 1931, the municipalities of
Spain bade King Alfonso to leave.
In the previous century in 1808 there was a striking
example of it when the alcalde of Mostoles (nine miles from
The Soil of Spanish Democracy Is Deep 75
Madrid) summoned the people to arms against the invasion
of Napoleon's soldiers. He sent horses from one town to
another with messengers to cry to the people: "The father-
land is in danger. Madrid is perishing, a victim of French
perfidy! Spaniards, come and save her! The Alcalde of
Mostoles."
After that it was the city of Oviedo which issued the
declaration of war against the French. Town after town
followed the lead. The Provincial Council of Asturias, in
the name of the towns, sent a delegation to England asking
for aid. Within three days British armies and ships were
answering the call. In the war that followed, some towns of
Asturias and elsewhere had their delegations in England
on missions related to both war and peace.
Another major root of political democracy in the period
that saw the rise of the Christian kingdoms consisted in the
relations between the people and their kings. The early
Catholic kings, like the much earlier Visigoth kings (who
were non-orthodox Arians until about the mid-sixth cen-
tury), were elected. The Spaniard said, and continued to say
until the last king disappeared, "Del rey abajo ninguno!"
Meaning: "Between the King and his subjects nobody!"
The Spanish medieval theory of monarchy ran parallel
to that of the pueblos in holding that the people themselves
were the source of power. Although the absolutism of the
palace struck this down time and again, the people never
relinquished it. The Spaniards did not hold, like the Eng-
lish, that the king could do no wrong. Above him were God
and the law. He could sin against both God and justice. He
could only act under the law, and unless he did so he was no
longer king.
The maxim of the Visigoth code, the Fuero Juzgo, was:
"Rex eris si recte facias; si non facias, non eris" That is,
"King you shall be if you do right; if you do not so, you shall
not be." Such was the rule.
In the Pyrenean kingdoms and the Catalan regions the
concept was even more liberal. There the monarch was
merely one chosen to command. As he had been elected, he
76 The Early Roots
could also be deposed. The lesser chiefs o the kingdom con-
sidered themselves his equals.
The independent attitude of the Catalans in their re-
lations with the sovereign is illustrated by a story which
they still love to recount. It deals with the fifteenth-century
King Fernando of Antequera, a Castilian, and the five mu-
nicipal councilors of Barcelona.
The Aragon King was paying a visit of state to Barce-
lona. The countship of Barcelona had been united to his
crown and he expected not only a royal reception but a
money grant. But he was treated as any other distinguished
visitor might be; instead of a money grant he was told that
he was expected to pay the usual tax to which the citizens
were subject.
When Fernando haughtily refused, one of the coun-
cilors, Joan Fivaller, called upon him in the name of his
colleagues and pointed to the terms of the Catalan fueros
which demanded compliance. He added: "I am further
obliged to inform Your Majesty that the Barcelona regidores
are prepared to lose their lives rather than countenance
any violation of their fueros."
The Aragon King retired from the city to return to his
Aragon capital. He died on the way of a broken heart,
said the Catalans. One of Barcelona's principal streets was
named by the Catalans Calle Fivaller.
The universities and the scholarship of the period of
the early Christian kings made other important contribu-
tions to the spirit of democracy which emerged from those
early times. The universities were considered to be associa-
tions of teachers and students who elected their rectors. Spain
has some of Europe's oldest universities. The universities of
Palencia and Salamanca, respectively, date from perhaps 1212
and 1215, and that of Valladolid from about 1260.
Such are the factors of the first fourteen and a half
centuries of Spanish history which left an indelible impress
on Spanish culture and gave to Spaniards their tough demo-
cratic traditions.
Part Three HAPSBURGS AND BOURBONS:
Short Outline of Spanish History
Under the Monarchies
8 Repression of Democracy by the
Monarchies: Third Phase
The history of Spanish democracy entered a third phase
with the rise of the centralizing monarchs whose policies
were absolutist and ruthless. This period began with the
appearance of "the Catholic Sovereigns/' Fernando and Isa-
bel, in 1474. It extended through the reign of the Hapsburgs
which began with Charles V in 1516, and on through an
entire century of the Bourbon dynasty which began in 1700.
It lasted until about 1808 which saw the Napoleonic inva-
sion of Spain and the resurgence of popular movements.
These two and a quarter centuries were the truly dark ages
of Spain which remained untouched by the liberalizing
movements of the Renaissance, of approximately the same
period, on the other side of the Pyrenees. Spain in fact was
the citadel of last resort against all that was liberal. The
spirit of democracy itself, after one heroic struggle near the
start of this period, and a number of fitful upsurges, all of
which were put down without pity, seemed somnolent. The
terrible Inquisition, which had as its object to stamp out all
heresy, vainly sought to imprison the free mind of man. It
made relentless war on all manifestations of liberalism, since
liberalism was considered the sin by which the angels fell,
and the embodiment of all other heresies. Under this black
and menacing shadow the people were mute,
77
78 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
The accession of the "Catholic Sovereigns" was the
commencement of a new order in Spain. While Isabel was
Queen of Castile by reason of conquest (in a civil war she
had defeated Juana de la Beltraneja who had more legitimate
claims to the throne), Fernando, King of Aragon, became
King of Castile by marriage with Isabel. At this time Spain
was still divided into numerous separate kingdoms and
principalities, some of them yet under the Arabs as at
Granada, The process of unification consisted in vesting the
titles of the kingdoms in the Castilian crown even though
the kingdoms and principalities retained their individuality,
their political institutions such as their Cortes, and clung
tenaciously to their fueros or charters of right. The joining
of the crowns of Castile and Aragon by marriage was the
outstanding example of such efforts at unification. The
"Catholic Sovereigns" now struck at everything that was
alien to their concept of a politically unified Spain. When
Isabel died in 1504 Fernando was left on the throne as regent
for his daughter, Joanna. After she had been harried into
insanity by Fernando and his palace coterie, Fernando be-
came king and reigned until his death in 1516.
Aragon and Catalonia, with its capital at Barcelona,
stoutly defended their independence even though the titles
of sovereignty over them were now vested in the crown of
Castile. The "Catholic Sovereigns" rode roughshod over the
charters of rights, not only of the Kingdom rf Aragon and
the once powerful Countship of Barcelona (which had ruled
most of Southern France and extended beyond the Mediter-
ranean Sea), but of their own proper kingdoms, Castile and
Leon. Eventually they brought under the crown all of Spain
except Navarre and the Basque provinces. This was known
as the period of the "Reconquista" Its high point and ulti-
mate aim was the expulsion of the Arabs from their last
stronghold, the Kingdom of Granada, and purging the coun-
try of Jews.
A wave of frenzied fanaticism took hold of the Christian
population. The cry, "Spain for those of pure blood!" and
for the defenders of "the Old Christianity" resounded. More-,
Repression of Democracy by the Monarchies: Third Phase 79
over Spaniards had discovered new worlds and the fortunes
of Spain seemed in the ascendant. But the enthusiasm was
dampened when the people began to take note of the assaults
on their rights. Soon all the pueblos and the larger cities
were defending their fueros. This protesting spirit mounted
and was gathering strength when Fernando died in 1516.
With the death of Fernando began the reign of the
Hapsburgs in the person of a young man of sixteen named
Charles. Although the grandson of Fernando and Isabel, he
had been born and raised in Flanders and had inherited the
traditions of the Holy Roman Empire, then ruled by another
grandfather, Maximilian I of Austria. Maximilian's son
Philip was the father of Charles. At the death of Maximilian,
Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor and as such was
known as Charles V, although as Spain's sovereign his title
was Charles I. The first was the title by which he was gen-
erally called. Navarre and the Basque provinces now also
came under his rule.
Charles trooped to Madrid with a retinue of Flemish
favorites and began imposing his Germanic ideas of absolut-
ism on the country. This fanned the fires of an already grow-
ing revolt, and soon Charles found himself confronted with
a full-dress rebellion.
This was known as the revolt of the comuneros. The
rebellious comunidades organized an army. Prelates and
priests sided with them. The Bishop of Zamora contributed
fifteen hundred soldiers. The army was led by Juan Padilla
of Toledo. Such important cities as Toledo, Zamora,
Segovia, Burgos, Guadalajara, Avila, Leon, Madrid and the
very capital of Castile, Valladolid, joined in the revolt. It
ended as in that period of history such movements in other
parts of Europe were fated to end the peasant revolts in
England and in Germany, for instance by defeat followed
by bloody vengeance upon both leaders and followers.
Charles pursued the labors of exterminating heretics,
which had been begun by his predecessors. He cemented the
partnership of trono y altar but in doing so one of his armies
invaded Rome (1527) and imprisoned a Pope to make it
80 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
perfectly clear that the throne took precedence over the altar.
One Pope, Adrian VI, who reigned briefly from 1522 to
1523, had been Charles' tutor in Flanders, and from him
Charles won "the right of presentation" whereby he pre-
sented the names of candidates for the bishoprics. As has
been seen, this right was thereafter preserved through suc-
ceeding monarchies and was again conferred on the Spanish
dictatorship by the concordat of 1953. It was Adrian's suc-
cessor, Clement VII, on whom Charles made war. The terms
of peace involved the payment of huge sums to Charles by
the Pope, and the Pope's crowning of Charles as Holy
Roman Emperor at Bologna in 1530. One of Charles' acts was
to sign the Edict of Worms which outlawed the Lutherans.
In 1556 Charles retired to a monastery at Yuste, the
victim of a religious fanaticism that verged on insanity. He
allowed his son, Philip, to rule in his stead and two years
later abdicated in favor of Philip. At Yuste he caused the
prelates and monks to hold religious ceremonies with fan-
tastic pomp. One of these was his own funeral mass which
he ordered to be celebrated with all the elaborateness and
solemnity befitting the world's foremost sovereign while he
looked on from a screened gallery.
Charles' son, now Philip II, pushed centralization to
its farthest limits. He had taken Queen Mary of England to
wife while his father still reigned, but returned soon there-
after to Spain. Mary died in 1558, the year of his father's
death. He next offered to marry Queen Elizabeth but she
had o,;her ideas. He then made war upon England which
ended in the defeat of the "invincible armada," an event
which ended Spam's control at sea and saw the commence-
ment of the naval supremacy of England. Philip declared
himself the defender of true Christianity and the arch
enemy of heresy. He underscored this aspect of his career
by making war on Pope Paul IV whom he accused of hos-
tility to Spanish authority in Italy. He celebrated his ac-
cession to the throne with a great auto-da-f^, a ceremonious
burning of heretics, among whom were nobles and prelates.
Repression of Democracy by the Monarchies: Third Phase 81
Under him the Inquisition reached the height of its power.
His cruel wars in Flanders are deeply engraved in the tab-
lets of European history.
As ruler of Spain, Philip personally pulled all the
strings. No administrative detail was too small for his spe-
cial attention, and he worked at his job day and night. One
salutary effect of this attention to detail was that he un-
covered much chicanery and corruption on the part of
trusted officials and imposed drastic remedies. But popular
liberties, together with the right to independent religious
opinions, were all but annihilated.
The Hapsburg dynasty was at its peak under Philip II
and its decline and Spain's decadence devolved rapidly
after his death in 1598. The dynasty itself ended in Spain
in 1700. Three Hapsburgs, Philip III, Philip IV and
Charles II were yet to reign. The period of Philip IV, 1621
to 1665, was signalized by the Catalan revolt another des-
perate attempt to recapture lost liberties, which finally
failed. There was one bright spot in this seventeenth cen-
tury of darkness what has been called Spain's golden age
of literature and art. It was the century which saw the
flowering of such literary commentators as Cervantes, such
dramatists as Calderon and Lope de Vega, and such painters
as El Greco, Velasquez and Zurbaran.
1700 The Bourbon Dynasty
The commencement of the eighteenth century the
year in which the last Hapsburg King, Charles II, died saw
Louis XIV, "the Sun King" of France, and England, then
under William of Orange, engaged in a bitter struggle for
the mastery of Europe. Charles had no heir. Louis of
France coveted Spain's throne for the House of Bourbon of
which he was head. Austria pressed for another Hapsburg.
England, jealous of France, supported Austria's claim. The
struggle was waged in the very death chamber of Charles
who was prevailed upon to designate Philip, grandson of
8s Hapsburgs and Bourbons
King Louis, as his heir. The seventeen-year-old youth be-
came king as Philip V when Charles died in 1700. But that
did not settle the issue.
There followed the War of the Spanish Succession
which was not finally ended until 1714. The war saw Aus-
tria and most of the German states, England and Holland
in arms against the Spain of Philip V, France, Bavaria, Por-
tugal and Savoy. Hostilities spread over most of Europe. It
was ended by a series of treaties, some signed in 1713, others
in 1714, and all together termed the Peace of Utrecht. Al-
though Philip retained his throne the peace was disastrous
for him. Spain lost what remained of her rights in the
Netherlands, Naples and Milan; Savoy took Sicily from
her; Great Britain was confirmed in possession of Gibraltar
(taken in 1704) and of the island of Minorca. This war also
affected the American continent where Britain acquired
Hudson's Bay territory, Newfoundland and Acadia.
The people of Spain were divided in this war; some
favored the Bourbons while others favored the Hapsburgs;
each faction welcomed and supported the armies of the side
which it favored. This has repeatedly happened in Spain
and contradicts the frayed stereotype that Spaniards forget
their differences and unite when confronted with the inter-
vention of foreigners, whether as friends or as foes.
Philip V inherited from the Hapsburgs a threefold leg-
acy: centralized government without benefit of people or
parliament; the Inquisition centered in the Holy Office; the
policy of intrigue and conquest as aids to the extension of
empire for the Spain of Philip again dreamed of empire
in spite of its losses.
Centralization took a peculiarly French turn. Adminis-
tration and government became more than ever centralized
in the hands of the King. Little was left of local authority.
More than ever Philip and his successors saw to it that the
church should serve the state's interests. The purging of
heretics went on as usual,
It was still the day of the grand prelate-statesmen. The
successors of the great cardinals, the Spanish Jimenez de
Repression of Democracy by the Monarchies: Third Phase 83
Cisneros, the English Wolsey, the French Richelieu, were
still the instruments of kings who used them in their at-
tempts to order the forces of history to their liking. The
French King now had his Cardinal Fleury; Philip had Julio
Cardinal Alberoni as his first minister.
The relationship between Philip and Alberoni was the
outstanding fact of the state-and-church partnership under
the King. All cardinals of this type were first of all political
personages who served the interests of the kings who had
procured their appointments. In one sense they were liaison
officers between Rome and the court, but primarily they
played the game of the King. One king's cardinal-statesman
pitted his wits and his cunning against a colleague serving a
royal master elsewhere. Sometimes both pitted their wits
against Rome itself. Often they were quite worldly char-
acters who went to the hunt and courted the ladies, such as
the dashing Louis Cardinal Rohan of France of the Queen's
Necklace fame.
The principal task set to Alberoni by Philip was to
tear up the Treaties of Utrecht and thwart England. He
began by building up the army and navy while his in-
triguing politique reached out all over Europe. The fine
fleet he had built sailed from Cadiz in 1719 for the invasion
of England. It was dispersed by a storm and Spain was
obliged to sign a new treaty by which she lost more of her
properties.
When the first Spanish Bourbon died in 1746 he was
succeeded by his son Fernando VI, who during the thirteen
years of his reign turned out to be the most peace-loving
monarch that Spain ever had seen. He was the only Spanish
king among those who preceded him or were to come after
him to keep Spain out of war. He built a new fleet to in-
sure Spain's neutrality; he kept the church in its place; at
his death his country for once could boast of a treasury
surplus.
But the calm that was settling on Spain quickly changed
when Fernando's half-brother came over from Italy in 1759
to rule as Charles III. He was King of the Two Sicilies,
84 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
and having been reared in the more modernized Italian
world he brought a fresh outlook to Spain. He stirred the
populace out of its slumbers, cracked down on the church
and, in concert with France, helped the American colonies
gain their independence from England. He was one of the
best kings Spain ever had. But being in Spain, he was ahead
of his times.
Charles' twenty-nine years on the Spanish throne are
worth looking at in some detail for two reasons: his attempts
to reform Spanish ways reveal how stubbornly Spaniards
cling to their cherished customs, their costumbres; his chal-
lenge to the abuses of the church, which had grown to
scandalous proportions, was the first effort of that kind in
Spanish history and the forerunner of similar efforts at vari-
ous times in Spain's subsequent life.
Charles, on his arrival in Spain, was shocked by the
country's condition. There were almost no roads; people
moved about on donkeys and mules or traveled afoot. Some-
times "principal personages" were carried from place to
place on hand-borne litters. Madrid's streets were unlighted.
Its inhabitants were unkempt and unwashed. The men wore
great wide-brimmed hats and covered half of their faces
with black shawls. Glossy black sideburns came down to
their chins. They wrapped themselves in black flowing
cloaks. As they wandered about the streets in the darkness
they seemed like skulking and sinister phantoms. And some
of them were in fact ready to pull out a dagger at the swish
of a passerby's gabardine. Charles decided that this was no
way for people to be living in the eighteenth century. He
ordered Madrilenos to stop wearing such hats, to unmask
their faces, to wear reasonably short and form-fitting cloaks.
But his attack on costumbre aroused Spaniards from their
lethargy.
They turned on the Walloon guardsmen whom the
King sent about the city to carry out his orders. Many a
swift dagger pierced the side of an unwary guardsman.
Charles had a full-scale cloak-and-dagger war on his hands.
Mob rule prevailed. Charles gave way and for a time left
Repression of Democracy by the Monarchies: Third Phase 85
the city until it calmed down once more. It was a strange
people, he realized, who so patiently endured oppression and
misery but wrathfully rose in defense of their customs.
Even today as you go about some of the more distant
provinces, like Andalucia, you will see the men wearing
high tapering black hats with brims as round as a cartwheel;
still covering their faces with the loose ends of a shawl;
still presenting black glossy sideburns to view, still wrapping
themselves in black flowing robes.
Charles was on surer ground when he turned his at-
tention to the evils which Spain suffered at the hands of
the church. First of all he turned his attention to the Jes-
uits, whom various countries of Europe found to be a dis-
turbing and subversive force wherever they planted them-
selves. They had recently been expelled from Portugal as a
threat to the throne, and soon Pope Clement XIV would
be ordering them dissolved as a threat to the well-being of
the Christian world. They already had an unsavory reputa-
tion in Spain. They had taken note of the disposition of
Charles to put curbs on the church. This conflicted with
the church's interests which it is the primary mission of the
Jesuits to defend. They were now accused of inciting the
populace against the King in an attempt to make him un-
popular and thereby frustrate his designs.
Charles considered this to be true on the basis of evi-
dence; he struck back at the Jesuits by confiscating their
properties. At the same time he instituted his program of
reforms. He stopped the execution of heretics by fire or
otherwise. He preceded to abate the evils of the church's
great landholdings and the multiplication of monasteries
with their hordes of monks. He put curbs on the flocks of
priests and other clerical personages who lived on the church
and at the expense of the country.
A census of 1768 showed 120,000 priests and monks,
plus another 25,000 clerical personages for a total of 145,-
ooo, all unproductive, living on beneficies, tithes, bounties
and doles. In addition there were 27,000 nuns. Their vast
holdings of buildings and lands paid the country no reve-
86 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
nues, and the whole system imposed a heavy burden on
its economic resources.
Charles restored these holdings to their proper place in
the country's economy. He discouraged the flocking of idlers
to the church and its monasteries, and began weeding out
other idlers from the ranks of university students. All sorts
of nondescripts were accustomed to flock to the universities,
not to study but to live slothful lives. Often they were mere
beggars, if not ruffians, who lived on the charity of others
to whom they spoke of their great need "to buy books,"
and to find ways of subsistence while they followed their
"studies." The majority of them claimed to be "clerks"
that is, to belong to the clergy, and so to enjoy the church's
protection against the laws of the realm.
Charles also instituted other reforms. The customary
camarilla or clique of royal favorites found no place in his
palace. He selected able ministers with whose help he im-
proved the revenues and finances; transformed idle lands
into productive areas by cultivation; built excellent coach
roads and erected fine buildings. He encouraged liberal
education as well as the arts and sciences.
Yet Charles despite his benevolent purpose was a des-
pot. He believed in reforms for the people but not by the
people. Only once did he summon that symbol of Spanish
democracy, the Cortes. History shows, and was to show after
the departure of Charles, that enduring reforms must come
from the people, whereas his reforms were all from above.
When Charles died in 1788, his reforms began to die
too. But for better or for worse he had awakened the peo-
ple and had challenged the privileges and power of the
church. True, the church was still the state's partner. But
the King had attempted to teach it the much-needed lesson
that it must remain in its place & lesson it refused to re-
ceive.
Although his son Charles IV, who succeeded him, tried
to carry on in his father's footsteps, he soon gave up the
impossible task. The Jesuits returned to their habitats.
Friars and priests received back their lands. The camarillas
Repression of Democracy by the Monarchies; Third Phase 87
sidled back to the palace. The old times, it seemed, had re-
turned. Yet the people were stirring. Charles IV was des-
tined never to live out his years on the throne. He was like-
wise destined to see the people once more moved to action
in defense of their land and their freedom.
The historians called Charles IV "an amiable simple-
ton/* and "a stout, orthodox, ignorant fool." One described
him at the time he ascended the throne in January, 1789,
as "a simple, honest, kindly soul of forty, a man of scanty
mental gifts, generous and easily led; yet still with plenty
of Bourbon obstinacy and a high sense of kingly privilege."
It was a combination of these characteristics that made
him the most unhappy monarch that ever sat on a Spanish
throne. His kindliness led him into the toils of the church.
His "scanty mental gifts" betrayed him into traps set for
him by Napoleon Bonaparte. His high sense of kingly
privilege, coupled with a passion for power, precipitated him
into a drama of jealous rivalry with his son that cost him
his throne. It was a drama of rivalry that consumed him
with hate, transformed his natural honesty to cunning, cast
his sense of kingly dignity into the mire and made him a
craven.
In the very year that Charles came to the throne a revo-
lution was brewing in France while across the Atlantic
there had arisen a revolutionary Protestant nation calling
itself the United States of America. It had adopted a consti-
tution founded on the principle that power resided in the
people. The shame of it, said the churchmen, was that the
King's father had helped to bring this heretical Protestant
nation to life.
Charles IV was anxious to show that there were no
grounds for considering him capable of any kind of sub-
versive activity in favor of democracy or Protestantism. One
of his first acts was to seal off the frontiers and to suppress
every newspaper in Spain except the official Gazette. In
order to guard further against revolutionary ideas, he
ordered that every foreigner in Spain, whether resident or
traveler, should swear allegiance to the King and, if Prot-
88 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
estant or other kind of heretic, become Catholic. Notwith-
standing, the churchmen continued to ask themselves ques-
tions about him. The King's mind, they reflected, had been
tainted by his father's strong views about reforms and the
church. They decided to leave nothing to chance. They
decided that they themselves would take over the education
of his son, Fernando, Prince of Asturias. The end product
of their malpractice on his mind was a masterpiece of de-
formed, mutilated and twisted humanity. The end prod-
uct for Spain was the loss of its colonies, invasion and a
ruinous war.
The political church embarked upon what was doubt-
less its most cunning and deeply planted conspiracy in all
Spanish history. It decided to destroy Charles; to mold, in
the person of Fernando, a new king to its own liking; to
pit son against father. The too confiding Charles walked
into the trap. The church's instrument was Padre Juan
de Escoiquiz, a Saragossa canon. He was sly and unscrupu-
lous, a Spanish counterpart of Moliere's sanctimonious hypo-
crite, Tartuffe; he performed his assigned labors behind a
mask of virtuous benevolence.
Fernando was as clay in the hands of the modeling
artist. Man needs a hero on which to pattern himself for
good or for evil, and that man is fortunate who, for good,
can look to his father. Fernando's father was no hero even
in his own character. And now Padre Juan taught the son
to conspire against him. He filled the Prince's mind with
unworthy ambitions and coached him in the utility of
slander, lies and foul blows.
"Make friends with Napoleon/' Padre Juan counseled.
When the Prince's spirited young Italian wife died, Padre
Juan prompted him to cry out that she had been poisoned
at his father's instigation. His tutor advised him to "marry
a princess of the house of Napoleon, who soon will be the
master of Europe." Padre Juan himself composed a letter
to Napoleon for Fernando to copy, in which Fernando in-
formed the Emperor of his feelings of respect, esteem and
affection for the greatest hero of all times. He besmirched
Repression of Democracy by the Monarchies: Third Phase 89
the name of his own mother, accusing her of improper rela-
tions with a court favorite. He wound up by begging Na-
poleon to grant him "a princess of your august house for a
wife/'
Napoleon decided to play son against father for the
destruction of both. Charles had allied himself with Napo-
leon and was sending him ships and 25,000 soldiers to aid
him in his campaign against Germany. The church con-
demned the government and made the people believe not
without truth that the King was squandering the national
patrimony while the people were starving.
One day October 28, 1807 Charles found a disturb-
ing note on his dressing table which read: "Haste! Haste!
The Prince of Asturias is planning a rising in the palace.
Steps must be taken at once to frustrate the plot. The
Queen runs the risk of dying of poison."
The King and his consort, Queen Marie, went to Fer-
nando's apartment where the Prince pretended to pass long
hours translating French authors. They found him with a
great many papers before him which he tried to hide.
Charles seized them and saw that they bore out the charge
of the warning. Some of the papers were so criminal that
the Queen herself destroyed them. Fernando was taken to
the Escurial with the ceremony prescribed for the arrest
and imprisonment of a royal prince. His father wrote to
inform Napoleon of the "horrible plot" of which Napo-
leon was aware all along. "My dear son, the heir to my
throne/' wrote the King, "has formed a horrible plot to de-
throne me and has gone to the length of attempting the
life of his mother. ... I pray you to aid me with your
wisdom and advice/* Fernando abjectly confessed, asked
for pardon, received it and was liberated. Soon his accom-
plice and instigator, Padre Juan, was giving him new lessons
in knavery.
The French, who had been granted permission to send
troops across Spain for a campaign against Portugal, now
began to keep them in Spain, so that it looked like an oc-
cupied country. The next year 1808 Murat, Grand Duke
go Hapsburgs and Bourbons
o Berg and Napoleon's Lieutenant General, arrived to take
charge. A frightened court decided to flee to Seville where,
in case of necessity, they could board ship for South Amer-
ica. This was exactly what Napoleon hoped they would do.
On the way the sovereigns and their retinue, including the
Prince, stopped at their Aranjuez palace not far from Ma-
drid. On the night of March 17 a frenzied mob from
Madrid advanced on the palace by prearrangement be-
tween Padre Juan and Fernando. It had been led to be-
lieve that the King had sold out Spain to the French. It
was a terrible night of madness and pillage in which the
mob, with the help of Fernando, wreaked its vengeance on
the King's favorite minister, Manuel Godoy, whom the con-
spirators had accused of being the King's instrument and
adviser in his deals with Napoleon. Fernando sent the mob
away with the words: "I will see justice done. And now
go home and good night. Your work is well done/'
He then arrogantly told the intimidated King, his own
father: "The time has come to abdicate and hand over the
crown/' King and Queen protested in vain. Their ministers
deserted them. At seven o'clock in the morning Charles
signed the decree of abdication. Their son, at the age of
twenty-four, was destined to show himself the wickedest,
the cruelest, the most perfidious king in all the annals of
Spain. On March 24, five days after Charles abdicated, his
son, now Fernando VII, entered Madrid in state, installed
himself in the palace at the edge of the city overlooking the
tawny plains of Castile. His first act was to summon Padre
Juan and appoint him his principal counselor.
Here was a situation made to Napoleon's order. He
continued to play son against father, leaving them uncertain
as to which one he would recognize, and giving encourage-
ment to both. Charles was already repudiating the abdica-
tion, charging it had been wrung from him by force and
duress.
Napoleon's ambassadors flattered young Fernando, tell-
ing him that Napoleon himself was coming to meet him.
Repression of Democracy by the Monarchies: Third Phase 91
Would the King meet the Emperor halfway at Burgos?
Fernando went but found no Napoleon there. Little by
little he was egged on toward the French border. He did
not know that his French escorts had orders to take him to
Bayonne, on the French side o the border, by force if neces-
sary. Fernando stepped hopefully onto French soil but
there was no welcoming ceremony as had been expected.
But at Bayonne Napoleon gave him a state dinner after
which he bade him sleep well. When Fernando had retired
to his assigned quarters there was a tap on his door. He
was handed a message from Napoleon which read: "The
Emperor has decided to end the Bourbon dynasty in Spain.
Hereafter Spain will be ruled by the Bonapartes. Be so
obliging as to renounce the throne for yourself and your
heirs."
The next day, Fernando, backed by Padre Juan who
had come with him, furiously demanded speech with Na-
poleon. The Emperor seemed to savor the spectacle of their
recriminations and furies, their charges that he had played
with them falsely. After enjoying the scene for a while
he left them with his spokesmen who in turn departed after
the pair had exhausted their patience. A few days later,
Fernando received a message from Napoleon informing him
that there was nothing more to discuss, because further dis-
cussions would be held with Charles IV, Spain's rightful
King, who was now approaching Bayonne and who, at Ma-
drid, had issued a proclamation in his own name as King.
Charles was welcomed at the border by Napoleon's
guards dressed in their best. He and his Queen were hon-
ored by their "dear ally" with salutes of musket and cannon,
and with more ceremony at Napoleon's palace. All this too
was a prelude to a polite invitation to renounce the throne
in favor of the Bonapartes. The Spanish political church
had outmaneuvered King Charles. But the Emperor Bona-
parte had outsmarted the church as well as Charles and his
mentally deformed son. Spam's royal family had been
caught in his trap.
Hapsburgs and Bourbons
9 The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase
During two and a quarter centuries of repression by the
throne-and-altar partnership the nation had been fitfully
sluggish and torpid. Now it awakened. The spirit of Span-
ish democracy had, as it were, "retreated in order to leap
forward again," as the French proverb puts it. The turn
into the nineteenth century saw the vigorous resurgence
of popular movements which was to continue through the
impending Peninsular War against Napoleon and the Bour-
bon restoration. Even though, after the Bourbons returned,
there were new attempts by the state and the church to re-
store the old order of absolutism, they never succeeded.
Violent repressions merely incited the people to new acts
of violence in the pursuit of their liberties. At one point
they got rid of a queen. At another they imported an Ital-
ian prince to become their King instead of the increasingly
odious Bourbons. And one day they proclaimed a Republic
the first which was fated to have its young life snuffed
out by a military pronunciamiento. For it was this period
that also saw the rise of the generals as a political power.
Napoleon, having caught Charles and his son in his
trap and thus, as he supposed, cleared the way for the Bona-
partes, now schemed to get the rest of the royal family out
of Madrid. He was especially anxious to get hold of the
Infante, Don Francisco, the old King's son and the brother
of Fernando. He was a mere boy, a lovable young fellow
who had won the hearts of the people. They were deeply
moved when they got wind of the plot. They denounced
the scheme as fe un rap to" a kidnapping and began to
mutter: "We will not let him go!"
It was Sunday, May i, of the year 1808. 'The Emperor's
Lieutenant General, Murat, had ridden to church in state.
The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 93
His way lay through Madrid's great central plaza known as
la Puerta del Sol the Gateway of the Sun upon which
nine streets converged. Several led toward the royal palace
a few blocks away.
As Murat with his glittering retinue rode back to the
palace hostile crowds greeted him with disrespectful noises
such as only a Spanish crowd is capable of uttering: the
meowing of cats, the baaing of sheep, the crowing of roost-
ers, the braying of donkeys. Above this cacophony rose
shrill whistles, the Spanish crowd's favorite expression of
disapprobation. Also cries of "Afuera los gabachos!" "Out
with the gabachos!'' "Gabacho" was an opprobrious epithet
applied to a supposedly un-Spanish and crude people spread
along the foot of the Pyrenees. As if at a signal, the Span-
iards now applied this scornful term to the French.
The people knew that the remaining royal family
and the young prince were due to be taken from the palace
the next day, to be led into the trap where Napoleon now
held Charles and Fernando. They had no thought of hin-
dering the old King's daughter, the Queen of Etruria and her
children. They were more Italian than Spanish. With the
young prince it was different.
Monday the second of May the Dos de Mayo dawned
on the city with sparkling splendor. Because of what hap-
pened that day "Dos de Mayo" has become a symbolic ex-
pression sacred to Spaniards. The day's anniversary is a
time for making fiesta., for celebrating the heroism of Spain's
common people. Wherever you travel in Spain you will
find plazas and avenues and streets named "Dos de Mayo"
The sun had hardly touched the Puerta del Sol and its
towers and rooftops when the crowd began pouring into it
from every direction and to move through the two wide
streets, the Calle Mayor and the Calle Arenal which led to
the palace. It is these spontaneous movements, without pre-
arrangement of any kind, that are a typical and ominous
prelude to popular violence in Spain. They are the signals
of a population in a mood of revolt.
Around the palace French soldiers and the regular
94 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
palace guard of Flemish Walloons stood in their places. In
an unending stream the crowd, men, women and children,
poured into the square facing the palace. Three carriages
drew up in front of the portal. The crowd saw that the
Queen of Etruria and her children had come from the palace
and entered the first. As it moved off their eyes followed
it sullenly. There seemed to be delays in loading the others.
"What is it?" asked someone in the crowd.
A palace attendant had come out and was asked what
was happening. He replied: "The Infante, Don Francisco,
is weeping. He says he does not wish to go away from Ma-
drid."
The news spread through the crowd. "Shame!" mut-
tered the people. "Shame on the kidnappers!"
There was a stir where the carriages were stationed.
Some French officers began maneuvering about them on
their horses.
A woman's voice rose above the muttering crowd:
"Oh, they're are taking the Infante away from us!"
"They're taking our Paquitito away!" chorused others.
"Paquitito" was a diminutive of a diminutive of Fran-
cisco Paquito. The common nickname for a man called
Francisco is Paco. "Paquitito" was an especial term of
endearment.
The woman's shrill cry sparked the crowd into action.
It surged up to the carriages, attacked the French of-
ficers, began to smash the coaches, to unhitch the horses,
to cut up the harness. "Los gabachos afuera!" they shouted.
"Don Francisco stays here!"
Suddenly there was a roaring of cannon, the sharp
crackling of musketry. Without warning French riflemen
and two French cannon, one at each side of the square, had
begun firing point-blank at the people.
There were surprised shrieks of alarm, terrorized
screaming and outcries of pain, of horror and of fury. Men
and women and sometimes their children clutched at each
other as they writhed and toppled, wounded and dying.
The crowd gave way, surged in white anger back down the
The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 95
Calle Mayor and the Calle Arenal to the Puerta del Sol,
while dying and dead lay strewn about in front of the pal-
ace. Like lightning the word passed through the city:
"The gabachos have made war on the people!"
New waves of Madrid's angered populace poured out to
the scene of the conflict. The people seized every kind of
imaginable weapon: ancient swords and old flintlocks; Moor-
ish scimitars that had served as wall ornaments; ox goads,
horsewhips, knives from the kitchens and butcher shops;
sticks, staves and stones. They swarmed through the nine
streets of the plaza. They attacked and killed every French-
man they met, civilian or soldier.
Meanwhile the French had moved cannon to the head
of the two wide streets commanding the Puerta del Sol
from the palace. Once more the fire of artillery began
strewing the ground with wounded and dead. Horsemen
charged the crowds, slashing at them with their swords,
trampling down all who came in their w r ay.
"To the barracksl To the barracks!" the crowd began
shouting. They had in mind an old artillery cuartel in the
northern part of the city manned by a skeleton force of
Spanish artillerymen, who were under strict orders to remain
neutral in case of any disturbance. The crowd stormed the
cuartel, broke down the gates, demanded admittance. They
persuaded the Spaniard artillerymen to join them. "This
is no time for neutrality!" they said. "A foreign enemy has
made war on the people." The artillerymen dragged out
five pieces of cannon, ranged them in front of the barracks
in the direction of advancing French troops.
Four thousand Frenchmen advanced under General
Lagrange. Some encircled the barracks, others advanced on
the crowd. The five cannon before the barracks answered
them, mowed them down, scattered them. When the de-
fenders' ammunitions got low, men and women ran to the
guns while the artillerymen improvised ammunition. Time
and again the French were forced to retreat. At length
General Lagrange raised the white flag and asked for a
parley. The barracks commander, Captain Luis Laoiz, who
96 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
went out to the parley, was treacherously slain, cut to pieces
by bayonets.
The French closed in. Frenchmen and Spaniards
fought breast to breast. When almost the last Spanish sol-
dier was dead, when the people were decimated, the Span-
iards gave way. The French were the masters and thirsting
for vengeance.
The vengeance was terrible.
There was a lull and then more musket fire crackled
in the Puerta del Sol and in the patio of the old church
of Buen Suceso that stood near, as it still stands today. More
musket fire rang out from the rise by the palace. A stunned
populace began to understand that French vengeance was
having its way unrestrained.
Men and women were being rounded up as they passed
through the streets, were bound to the stirrups of horsemen
or enclosed within files of soldiers and marched to their
deaths. The mere fact of their having been taken prisoner
was enough to condemn them to death. Firing squads
worked incessantly in the Puerta del Sol, in the church
patio, on the heights behind the palace. All that afternoon
and on through the night the shooting went on. In the
morning the people read a proclamation plastered on the
walls: "Every armed person shall be shot. Every spot where
a Frenchman has been killed will be burnt to the ground."
An "armed person" could mean anyone who carried so
much as a stick or a stone.
Such was the French terror that swept over the city.
And these are the deeds of which Spaniards thought when
in later years they paused to speak of the "Dos de Mayo"
their Second of May.
At Bayonne Fernando showed no indignation, no sign
of sorrow for the events at Madrid. Thinking of himself
only, he sold out his country, renounced all rights to the
crown for himself and his heirs, in return for a landed
estate, the title of "Royal Highness" and a pension of about
$500,000 a year of which in the end he was cheated. His
The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 97
father, whom Napoleon chose to consider the rightful king,
drove a much better bargain but was cheated as well.
These were the events that led up to the Peninsular
War which was to hold Spain in its grip for five years. Its
great significance lay in the fact that it was the first war
which the people had ever declared by themselves and in
their own cause. The historians were also to call it the War
of Liberation. It was destined to give back to Spain, for
a period, the people's parliament and a liberal consitution.
We have already seen how the alcalde of the small town
of Mostoles summoned the people to arms by sending
mounted messengers out with the message, "The Fatherland
is in danger!"
It was also significant that the people again turned to
that most ancient form of Spanish democracy, the regional
and community councils. One of the most vigorous of the
historical regions was the mountainous area of rough-and-
ready people, Asturias, to the north. From Oviedo, its capi-
tal, its Provincial Council declared war on the French and
began forming a national army. Throughout Asturias, as
also in other parts of Spain, revolutionary councils sprang
up, militias were organized. In some places the entire able-
bodied male populations went off to war. The Council of
Asturias constituted itself the national authority and sent
delegations to England asking for guns, munitions and other
needed supplies. Their requests were met within a matter
of days. One after another the Spanish provinces joined the
war until not one was left on the sidelines.
The story of the initial reverses and the brilliant vic-
tories that followed, of all the fortunes of war, good and
bad, is a matter of history. Also a matter of history is the
story of the intervention of Sir Arthur Wellesley the future
Duke of Wellington with English forces against the
French. Once again was illustrated the fact that Spaniards*
welcomed the foreigner when he came as a friend and didi
not throw him out and close ranks as the frayed stereotypes
have it.
t)8 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
The Spanish generals were hesitant about joining the
movement. Many secretly favored the French, in whose
service they nominally were. Others feared reprisals and
loss of careers. Eventually some threw themselves whole-
heartedly into the popular cause and met with brilliant
military victories. Others who joined the cause were negli-
gent, even cowardly when in fact not also treacherous.
Within six weeks after the declaration of war the
French, holding Madrid, were hemmed in on all sides in
the center of Spain. They held a line of communications to
Bayonne over which they received men and supplies. This,
however, was but a temporary setback in a war that had
scarcely begun.
There were shiftings in the political scene. Seville had
taken the lead from Asturias by setting up a revolutionary
junta which called itself the Supreme Council of Spain and
the Indies. Seville's geographical position was far more
favorable as a center from which to conduct operations. At
Madrid two governing bodies were attempting to function
one the Regency junta and the other the Council of Castile.
They were subservient to the French and paid more atten-
tion to the rivalries between themselves than to the immedi-
ate business of governing. They were composed, for the most
part, of reactionaries, opportunists such as old-style politi-
cians, generals and nobles plus a handful of prelates. Even-
tually they flitted to Seville where they attempted to join
forces with the Supreme Council of Spain and the Indies.
They called themselves "Majesty," held daily sessions in full-
dress uniform and tried without much success to hinder the
popular movement on one pretext or another.
On July 9, 1808, Napoleon's eldest brother, Joseph,
who had just been ceremoniously acclaimed at Bayonne
as the new Spanish '"King," set out for Madrid. With him
were his cabinet members, a band of self-seeking Spaniards,
ex-ministers of the deposed regime, nobles and generals. At
^the Spanish border there were stage-managed welcomes the
ringing of church bells, the resounding of cannons and the
cheers of hand-picked spectators. After that there was noth-
The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 99
ing but silence and sullenness. People looked at him and
his retinue idly as they might stare at the shabby parade of
a handful of dogs, monkeys and clowns of some poverty-
stricken untented "circus" parade. At Vitoria, Joseph wrote
to Napoleon: "The fact is there is not a single Spaniard on
my side except the few who are traveling with me. Those
who might have been on my side have taken to hiding, ter-
rified by the unanimous condemnation of their country-
men/' At length from Madrid he wrote: "I have for an
enemy a whole nation of twelve million souls hating me and
thirsting for my life. . . . Sire, believe me and err not:
your glory will sink in Spain/* As it did.
New Constitution
The fortunes of war were not going too well for the
Spaniards. King Joseph "Pepe Botellas," or Bottle Joe,
to the Spaniards had been obliged to flee Madrid for ten
days. But in November, 1809, Napoleon himself was driving
toward the capital which he entered on December 10. It
was logical that he should head straight for Seville. The
people's government which had been set up there, together
with the Regency junta and other institutions of govern-
ment, moved themselves to Cadiz, fifty miles away. There,
in the white city on the cliff-like isle of Leon overlooking
the Atlantic near the Strait of Gibraltar, linked with the
mainland by a causeway, the popular government began
preliminary discussions for a new constitution. The work
was in the hands of a Constituant Cortes, composed of repre-
sentatives from most parts of Spain. But due to war condi-
tions some sections of Spain were sparsely represented. The
new Cortes dispensed with the Senate but included in its
membership die-hard monarchists, churchmen and generals.
Meanwhile, in January, 1810, the French, under Joseph,
took Seville. Cadiz was isolated from the rest of Spain. Sir
Arthur Wellesley had been dominating the Spanish defense
with his generalship since the previous year. Now, with
Cidiz hemmed in, British frigates and cruisers maintained
ioo Hapsburgs and Bourbons
communications and a line of supplies between Cadiz and
Spain's coastal regions on both the Mediterranean and the
Atlantic. At Cadiz the government dragged on.
At length, on September 24, 1810, the Cortes assembled
with all solemnity in the great cathedral on the mainland,
in the part of the Cadiz metropolitan area now called San Fer-
nando, to inaugurate the substantive part of their task. The
Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, the Primate of Spain, Don
Luis de Bourbon, one of Fernando's kinsmen, celebrated a
pontifical mass. All the deputies took an oath to counte-
nance no other creed but the Holy Roman Catholic and
Apostolic faith and to have no other sovereign but Fer-
nando VII. In the distance French big guns barked their
challenge to what here was being brought into life.
For nearly a year and a half the Cortes, meeting in
the theater of nearby San Fernando and in the church of
St. Philip Neri in Cadiz, debated such matters as the new
constitution, a new code of statutory laws, personal privi-
leges, taxes, the conduct of the war, and so on.
Elsewhere Spanish hopes were revived as Wellesley and
the British pressed hard on Madrid and cut off its com-
munications. The people were shouting "Vivas" for Wel-
lesley and "lo$ ingleses" They flocked to the churches light-
ing votive candles for the success of the English, and per-
haps also for their conversion. Sometimes Spaniards had
troubled discussions about the morality of receiving aid
from a Protestant country. But their consciences were eased
by the reflection that such was God's will. Besides, said
some, "These are Scots in their bright-colored skirts, and
Scots, as one knows, are less heretical than the English/'
As one proposition after another was debated at Cidiz
the wrath of the reactionaries and of the churchmen
mounted. The church opposition was led by the Bishop of
Orense, who opposed all suggestion that the people had law-
making powers, or even that they had a rightful voice in
the government. Attacks were particularly aimed at two pro-
visions which were the hard core of the constitution. These
were: "The power of making laws is vested in the Cortes
The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 101
with the King/' and "The nation is essentially sovereign;
consequently it possesses the exclusive right of making fun-
damental laws/' What this meant was that the King in him-
self was not the nation. Both provisions struck at the
concept of absolutism which the monarchies of both Haps-
burg and Bourbon lines had during two and a quarter
centuries been foisting on Spain. They were a reversion to
the Spanish traditional concept of democracy.
The opposition was further infuriated when the Cortes
abolished the Inquisition. Wellesley showed his understand-
ing of the church's political power when he commented
that the Cortes, by so doing, had sealed the fate of the
liberal crusade.
In January, 1812, the new Constitution was finally
adopted. Its outstanding provisions were those concerning
the sovereignty of the nation and its lawmaking powers;
the monopoly of the Catholic religion; the single chamber;
the power of veto over the King by the Cortes; the popular
vote. The Cortes would no longer be dependent on the
King's caprice. In addition to the power of veto, it was to
meet every year whether or not the King convoked it. It
would be chosen by an electoral college which in turn had
been chosen by direct manhood suffrage on the basis of one
deputy for every 70,000 inhabitants.
The convention had been impressed by the American
and French constitutions, which established three separate
powers, and it followed that pattern. The Cortes alone was
to have the taxing power. The armed forces were to be at
its orders. There was to be freedom of the press and no
censorship. And there were the safeguards which made it
impossible for the King to suppress the Cortes by the fa-
vorite device of past kings in refusing to summon it, or in
summarily dismissing it. Those who studied the new Con-
stitution saw that, in effect, the constituent Cortes had set
up a Republic within the framework of monarchy.
The Constitution was proclaimed with high hopes and
great solemnity on March 19, 1812. The streets and plazas
of the besieged temporary capital were brilliantly lighted.
log Hapsburgs and Bourbons
There were state banquets and speech-making; shows in the
theaters; dancing and music in the streets; general rejoicing.
Throughout Spain the new Constitution was hailed by
the populace as the answer to their long prayers. The peo-
ple had undergone a great transformation since those days
when they lay torpid under the absolutism of a Philip V
and his kind. They said now, that when Spain had been
liberated and Fernando came back Spaniards would be
happy and prosperous and free. They had not yet learned
of Fernando's perfidy in bartering his crown to Napoleon.
Such was the birth of the Constitution of Cddiz, which
was destined to play such a tragic part in the fortunes of
Spain for another half century or so.
In the last days of May, 1813, th e victory stood with
the Spaniards, and the Frenchmen were flying toward the
French border. As they fled they stripped towns and villages
of works of art, precious church vessels, gold, silver and
jewelry everything valuable that could be seized and taken
along. Columns of soldiers protected long queues of coaches
as together they tramped and rumbled across the tawny
Castile mesetas toward the Pyrenees. At Vitoria, Wellesley
was waiting for them. On June 21, the two armies clashed.
By nightfall the French were scattered in panic. All about
stood the carriages laden with loot. Civil dignitaries and
soldiers, pursued by the Spaniards and the English, scurried
hither and thither in their haste to escape.
In the main part of Europe, Napoleon's fortunes had
fallen. He had just suffered the terrible disaster of Russia's
winter. Fernando in his palace at Valen^ay had been fawn-
ing on Napoleon, congratulating him on his earlier vic-
tories, and acting the playboy. He had still been dreaming
of marriage with a Bonaparte princess and had been apolo-
gizing for the Spaniards in their struggles for freedom. He
had written Napoleon to say that he hoped a marriage with
a Bonaparte would "deprive a blind and furious people of
the pretext for deluging their fatherland in blood in the
name of a prince [himself], the heir of their ancient dynasty,
The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 103
who had been converted by a solemn treaty, by his own
choice, and the most glorious of all adoptions, into a French
prince and the son of your imperial majesty/'
On March 22, 1814, Fernando again entered Spain, com-
ing through the gateway at Perthus in the eastern Pyrenees
a dozen or so miles from the Mediterranean shore. The
Constituent Cortes now functioning at Madrid had sent him
an address of welcome in which they told him that his
sovereignty would be recognized as soon as he reached Ma-
drid and taken the oath of loyalty to the new Constitution
which declared that "the power of making laws is centered
in the Cortes with the King/' Before setting forth for Spain
he had agreed to such action.
He took exactly four weeks to reach Valencia. On the
way he was enthusiastically welcomed by a ragged and hun-
gry people who had offered their all, even hazarded their
lives, for him. During his stops on the way he held mys-
terious conferences. He tarried at Valencia another four
weeks holding more conferences with generals and church-
men. At Madrid the Cortes began to wonder why he had
not responded to its message of welcome. They did not yet
know that at Valencia he had issued a secret manifesto re-
pudiating the Constitution, rejecting all that had been ac-
complished during the more than six years since he had
been away.
At length the Cortes was notified that Fernando would
arrive on May 13. The Cortes and the regents prepared
an eleborate welcome; the city was in festive attire. But on
the eve of May 13 the King's agents swarmed over the city.
They invaded the palace, the Cortes, government offices,
homes; they arrested the regents and every deputy they
could find; they seized editors, poets and writers in fact,
every significant person in the liberal movement and put
them in prison.
When, the next day, the King entered Madrid the
church bells rang joyously; the houses of monarchists were
gaily decked with banners and tapestry; triumphal arches
104 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
marked the King's way to the palace. But the people who
had so hopefully prepared this welcome were stunned into
silence.
Fernando and his coterie lost no time in establishing
things to their liking. The death penalty was ordered for
any person who so much as dared say a word in favor of
the new Constitution. Firing squads and the gallows worked
overtime everywhere. Those who escaped execution were
loaded with chains and sent to the prison camps.
The church recovered all that had been taken from it
and more. Monasteries received back their lands and their
privileges. The Jesuits were welcomed back. The Holy
Office, although not recognized by civil law, entered into
its full powers. A hideous society called "The Exterminat-
ing Angel/' founded by the Bishop of Osma, began hunting
for heretic liberals in all nooks and corners in pulpits, in
the universities, even in monasteries and even among royal-
ist groups.
Fernando had come back determined to strike down the
Constitution, but he could not do so without the help of
the generals who, as has been seen, had become political
as well as military personages. The country had divided it-
self into two camps, one held by the liberals with the help
of certain generals who stood with the people; the other
held by the King, prelates and nobles to whom other gen-
erals had offered their sword in the hope of favors to come.
The two Spanish worlds had come to grips with each other.
While Fernando was still moving toward Madrid he
had begun preparing a dossier of the generals he could trust
and those he could not. He had made his plans to put ob-
noxious generals out of the way. One of the King's hand-
picked generals, named Elio, had begun a reign of terror at
Valencia even before the King reached Madrid. All liberals
were rounded up, tortured and shot, as heretics, bandits or
traitors. His favorite device was to call liberals "bandits.'*
Within a short time Elio had hanged a hundred of them.
Among the generals loyal to the Constitution was a great
guerrillero, Francisco Espoz y Mina, who at Pamplona issued
The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 105
a pronunciamiento in its favor. Another, General Juan Diaz
Porlier, a young man of twenty-seven who had made a
brilliant record in the Peninsular War, pronounced in its
favor in Galicia and formed a junta in its support. He was
arrested and hanged thirteen days later on October 2, 1815.
An example of how the generals began feeling their
power as political personages was the case of General Enrique
O'Donnell, one of a group of generals and nobles with Irish
names whose forebears had come to Spain as political refu-
gees in earlier times. O'Donnell was a first-rate opportunist,
a brilliant officer who served, not the Constitution or the
King, but Enrique O'Donnell. Before the King's arrival he
had fought ably in support of the liberals. After the King
came he declared for the King. But secretly he passed along
word to the constitutionalists that he was with them at heart
and would soon be with them in deed.
The King made him captain general of Andalucia which
favored the Constitution it had been instituted in Cadiz,
one of its cities. Installed at Cadiz, O'Donnell fathered a
plot to have the garrison pronounce for the Constitution.
What he really had in mind was that it should pronounce for
O'Donnell.
He had taken a cue from the career of Napoleon. His
plan was that the garrison should declare a Republic and
name him the first consul of Spain. While at Barcelona he
had already caused coins to be struck bearing his portrait
and the legend, "Enrique I, Consul of Spain."
The stage setting he had prepared for the occasion re-
quired that one of his generals, Sarsfield, should gallop
dramatically before the garrison lined up in parade order
and cry "Viva la constitution!" Sarsfield galloped before them
as prearranged. But instead of crying out as planned, he
shouted "Viva el rey!" "Long live the Kingl" A furious
O'Donnell ordered the arrest of a number of generals and
lesser officers, had some of them executed, but to the King
represented himself as his defender who had frustrated a plot.
The King recalled him from Andalucia, but could not quite
decide whether O'Donnell was for or against him. Only a
io6 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
few months later when another liberal movement began
sweeping the country, O'Donnell joined up with it.
The struggle for freedom went on despite the brutal
repressions and one time at least seemed to succeed. Six years
after Fernando's return, he was obliged to accept the Con-
stitution even though briefly. "Tragala! Tragala!" that
is, "Swallow it! Swallow it!" chanted the people. The chant
was characteristic of the people's capacity for sardonic irony.
The temporary liberal victory was brought about by the
audacity of Commandant (Major) Rafael del Riego who
commanded a post at Cadiz. The event produced the
"Himno del Riego/* or "Hymn of Riego/' which the people
everywhere chanted and which in later years became the
official hymn of the Republic.
On New Year's Day, 1820, Riego paraded his garrison
in Cadiz and with a rolling of drums and fanfare proclaimed
the Constitution at the principal squares of the city. The
populace, which had witnessed the Constitution's original
proclamation eight years before, responded with enthusiasm.
The military governor obliged Riego to leave and discour-
aged the city's ardor. As Riego marched through Andalucia
volunteers joined him, and he soon had a small popular
army at his command. Although it was a somewhat uncer-
tain venture, the news of it spread through the country,
and soon city after city was defying the King and pronounc-
ing again for the Constitution. Garrisons and populace
joined forces in such places as La Corufia, Oviedo, Valencia,
Saragossa and elsewhere. It was clear that the country was
turning against the King, and his advisers told him that
"the only way out" was to take the constitutional oath.
The King sent a message to the Cortes that he had
decided to bow to the will of the nation. A ceremonial
session was prepared; this the King attended all smiles and
took the long-delayed oath to support the Constitution. For
three years he was reluctantly obliged to accept the principle
that the power of making laws resided in the Cortes with
the King. But he was plotting new villainy. He encouraged
his supporters to resort to the big lie technique by spreading
The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 107
the news abroad, for the benefit of neighboring kings, that
he was held in duress by the Cortes. This myth was par-
ticularly beamed to the "restored" French King, Louis
XVIII. Louis, whose predecessor had been beheaded by the
French Revolution, was sensitive about the divine preroga-
tive of kings.
Priests and nobles now used a tactic which has been
seen in Spain time and again the deliberate creation of
disorder. Priests led armed terrorist bands through the
countryside. One priest, Padre Antonio, nicknamed "the
Trappist," went so far as to set up a rump "regency" at Seo
de Urgel, at the gateway of Andorra in the Pyrenees, where
he raised the cry: "The King is a prisoner!"
These tricks had their effect. Louis XVIII felt impelled
to "deliver" his fellow king in Spain who, after all, was a
Bourbon like himself. He sent an army to Spain which
the people mockingly nicknamed "the hundred thousand
sons of St. Louis."
With a French army once more marching on Madrid,
the Cortes fled to Seville and then to Cadiz, taking the King
with them. The French, having taken Madrid, turned to-
ward Cadiz to rescue the King and capture the Cortes. A
French fleet stationed itself off the port and began to bom-
bard it. Fernando, now feeling safe, made sport of the Cortes
and climbed to a high tower where he signaled his presence
to the French with rockets. The French flagship put into
the harbor where the admiral waited to receive the King.
His ministers and the permanent commission of the Cortes
bade him a ceremonious farewell, kissing his hand. He
was smiling, and solemnly promised forgiveness to all. "My
pardon," he said, "is complete and absolute without ex-
ceptions whatever." He had no sooner got back to Madrid
than he was proving himself "an artist in the matter of
perjury," as one historian has put it.
An ignominious end was reserved for Riego, the author
of the constitutional interlude. During the interlude, he
had been promoted to general; he had made a triumphal
entry into Madrid; had been showered with honors. Now he
io8 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
was bound and placed in a basket tied to the tail of a donkey,
dragged through the streets of Madrid to a place of exe-
cution, and there hanged, drawn and quartered. Sad to say,
there were many to mock at him along the way of his last
tragic journey. Some to chant cruelly: "Tragala! Tragala!"
And many to watch morbidity as he mounted the gallows.
The Peninsular War produced its heroes. While they
never became national heroes in the sense that other nations
have such heroes to serve as models of conduct, they captured
the popular mind in their moments of history although, as
the years went by, they never became legendary figures.
Riego was one such hero. Another was Juan Martin nick-
named "El Empecinado," which might be translated as
"obdurate" or "irreductible." He was perhaps the greatest
guerrilla fighter that Spanish history records a born leader
of men. What happened to him well illustrates why Span-
iards called the reign of Fernando "a horrible nightmare."
"El Empecinado" was one of the many who had been
imprisoned on Fernando's return. Emissaries from the King
offered to make him a count or a duke if he would rally
to the side of the King. He refused, and during the con-
stitutional period brought into being by Riego he was re-
leased. After the French invasion he attempted to flee to
Portugal but was captured. When the King returned from
Cadiz he gave orders that Martin be subjected to humiliation
and tortures so terrible that it is difficult to believe they
could have been conceived by human mind.
He was imprisoned in a cage like an animal, kept for
days without food or drink. On market days he was hauled
out in his cage and exposed to the insults of the mob. In
Spain, as elsewhere, it was always possible to find mobs to
vent their frustrations and passions on unfortunate victims.
Among many there was a strong residue of religious fanati-
cism.
After ten months of this kind of torture, El Empecinado
was led out for the final moment of the tragedy. The King
had prepared an auto-da-fe in the old manner an execution
with ceremony, the scaffold substituted for the stake. He
The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 109
was to be drawn and quartered after the hanging. Once
he had wielded a sword that was famous. Now, as he was
led toward the scaffold, an officer taunted him by waving his
beloved sword in his face. In a burst of fury El Empecinado
broke his chains and swung out right and left at those about
him. But he was clothed in a shroud which caused him to
stumble. His executioner and some others seized the rope
which was already around his neck, and dragged him about
until he was dead.
There were contrasting behaviors on the part of the
generals during this period. In some there was loyalty and
nobility of conduct. In others there was baseness and treach-
ery which seemed to be patterned on that of the King. This
was illustrated by the case of General Jose Maria de To-
rrijos, a staunch supporter of liberalism who had fled into
exile. He had his headquarters in Gibraltar whence he or-
ganized a resistance movement with British protection.
Among the generals supporting the King was Gonzales
Moreno, governor of Malaga, but an old friend of Torrijos.
The King used Moreno to lay a trap for his friend. Moreno
sent him a message to say that "The dissatisfaction with the
King is mounting," and that "The army of Malaga under
my command is ready to cooperate with you/' But from
others in Spain he received the warning: "Beware of treach-
ery!" He brushed it aside with the reply: "My good friend
Moreno is incapable of treachery."
On the night of December i, 1831, Torrijos approached
the Malaga shore in two small sailing vessels with a total
complement of fifty-two men, counting the crews. He was
to have been welcomed by Moreno and his garrison upon his
landing. But they landed several miles from the appointed
spot. Torrijos sent an aide to Moreno to tell him of the
landing. Moreno arrested the messenger and sent troops to
arrest Torrijos and all with him. The King had previously
given orders that all be taken alive instead of being shot on
the spot, as was customary. The King next announced the
"happy news" to the country that Torrijos and his party had
been seized but added that his magnanimous heart had
no Hapsburgs and Bourbons
spared them all punishment except that they would be shot.
On the morning of December 11, on the Malaga beach,
the fifty-two men were lined up in front of a firing squad.
The garrison was in dress uniform. Near the men stood
cowled friars to read the death warrants and offer consolation
if desired. Other friars blindfolded the victims. Torrijos
asked that he not be blindfolded, and that he be permitted
to give the order to fire on him. Both requests were denied.
The rifle squad volleys rang out fifty-two times and when all
was over fifty-two corpses lay on the beach.
Briefly a Malaga newspaper, the Mercantil, informed
the city of what happened. It said:
This morning at 11.30 on the beach near the city, a firing squad
executed General Jos Maria Torrijos, Lieut. Col. Juan Lopez Pinto,
the English officer Robert Boyd, the ex-President of the Cortes, Manuel
Flores Calder6n; the ex-Minister of War, Francisco Lorja Pardio, and
their several companions. The bodies were taken to the cemetery in
the public garbage wagons.
The city presented a gloomy aspect. All the doors and balconies
were closed and the streets and plazas deserted. The political enemies
of the executed ones remarked on the severity of the punishment and
not even the most fanatical of them thought the government of Ma-
drid would sentence all to death, including the bugler boy of tender
years who was also executed. One of the priests, Padre Vicaria, who
attended the prisoners in their last moments, was so affected that he
went insane.
General Moreno, who had betrayed his friend, was
given the opprobrious nickname of "The Executioner of
Malaga/' Less than two years later he went over to the
Carlists who were fighting to place Fernando's brother Carlos
on the throne. But his own Carlist soldiers hated him. One
day they turned against him and thrust him through with
their bayonets.
One of the outgrowths of the rise of the generals was
the military juntas oath-bound secret societies of officers
which became a state within a state, and which punished
officers who did not conform to their dictates. They extended
their authority over civilians; they began the regime of
'The Nation Reawakens: Fourth Phase 111
military dictatorships which at times obliged even the King
to conform to their wishes.
Martin Hume, an able and painstaking English histo-
rian, pronounced this judgment on the regime of Fernando:
History has no record of blacker ingratitude than that with which
the King treated the country at large. . . . There was neither justice
nor mercy in the government of the besotted churchmen who sur-
rounded the King. The gallows was the sole instrument and argument
by which they ruled; they prayed for the restoration of the Inquisition,
which Fernando dared not grant. The frenzy of intolerance and cru-
elty spread from the preaching friars and ignoble nobles to the brutal
mob. ... It Is a lamentable truth that much of the atrocity of this
persecution was owing to the influence of the friars and the church.
The principal effect of the arrival of "the hundred
thousand sons of St. Louis" in 1823 to help Fernando tear
down the new Constitution was the rise of the Carlists who
brought new wars to Spain. These wars had a deeply marked
religious character as may be seen from the fact that the
Virgin of Montserrat, the patron of the famed Benedictine
monastery of Montserrat in Catalonia, was commissioned by
the Carlists as their general-in-chief.
The chapter of history that was written from 1823 to
Fernando's death in 1833 was totally black. The Society of
the Exterminating Angel dealt with liberal ideas as being
both heresy and treason. Every citizen, even to common
soldiers and university students, was watched and classified
according to his associations and ideas. Monks were stationed
at the borders to examine every book, paper, pamphlet or
leaflet, every scrap of writing to see that nothing smacking
of heresy or treason was allowed to slip into Spain. An
ironical Spanish writer of the period pictured a monk ex-
amining a book marked "Researches/' In indignation he asks:
"Who is this man Researches? I have never heard of him.
Into the fire he goes." The war on ideas reached its climax
In 1830 when all colleges and universities were closed and
education denounced as the greatest curse that could be
visited on a people. "If the people want education let them
112 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
go to the bullfights/' said those responsible for such proceed-
ings, not in jest but in dead earnest.
Every town had its military court to take the place of
the Inquisition. A chance word, a gesture, a look each
was enough to bring man, woman or girl before it. Even
wellbred ladies and lighthearted girls were sent to the galleys,
to the dungeon or the scaffold. In Granada a well-born
senora named Mariana Peneda was convicted of being a
constitutionalist and hanged because she was observed to be
an assiduous knitter. Informers testified that she was be-
lieved to be knitting a flag to be used by those who believed
that "the nation is essentially sovereign/'
Even though it was a crime worthy of death to hold
liberal ideas, undercover liberals maintained communication
with liberals in exile in France, in England and at Gibraltar.
In Catalonia a tyrant, the Conde Espafia, was invested with
the governorship. He threw whole families into dungeons
without legal formality, stripped them of their lands and
other possessions, drove them to slow death by starvation
and even death by suicide. Or else they were shot and hoisted
on gibbets as "examples" to others, or shipped off to slow
death in the penal settlements of Africa.
But this was not enough for the church authorities.
They began to accuse Fernando himself of being tainted with
liberalism and Freemasonry. A new anti-liberal party sprang
up around the King's younger brother who began calling
himself the rightful king, by name Carlos III. The party
was organized in 1827 by Jesuits and friars at Manresa, sacred
to the memory of Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits' founder. It
styled itself the Federation of Pure Royalists; its members
called themselves the "Apostolics." They became known
as the Apostolic party.
The Carlist Wars Begin
10 The Carlist Wars Begin
The Apostolic party was grouped around the pretender,
Carlos III. And this was the beginning of the Carlists who
as time went on called themselves the Traditionalists. Al-
though they tolerated Fernando on the throne, they were
merely marking time until he should die, when they pro-
posed to put Carlos on the throne in place of the Infanta
who was to be Isabel II on the death of Fernando, her
father.
When it finally became apparent that Fernando was
approaching his end, the Carlists organized a shadow gov-
ernment prepared to seize power at once. It was headed by
the General of the Jesuits and the Bishop of Leon. The
King's party outmaneuvered the Carlists by taking Isabel
before the Cortes and obtaining its oath of allegiance to her.
She was not quite three years old.
Fernando, seriously ill, was pronounced dead on Sep-
tember 18, 1832. The Carlists immediately proclaimed Car-
los King. Attendants began preparing the body for burial
and then discovered that he was still alive. He recovered
and lived on for more than a year. A terrific battle for con-
trol of the palace was waged between the Carlists and the
leaders of the King's party. On September 29, 1833, Fer-
nando suffered a stroke of apoplexy. This time he was un-
mistakably dead.
Little Isabel was declared Queen under the regency
of her mother, Queen Maria Cristina. And the Carlists
went to war. They were to plunge the country into war
three different times during the next forty years.
The first Carlist war got under full headway early in
.1834 and was to continue during six years, drenching the
Basque provinces, Catalonia, Castile and other regions with
ii4 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
blood. Everywhere the people shouted "Long live the Con-
stitution!" This became the shibboleth of the King's party.
Although the Queen Regent had no more use for the Con-
stitution than had her late husband, she was obliged to ac-
cept the watchword because she was now forced to rely on
popular support to maintain herself in power and her daugh-
ter on the throne. Her advisers told her that her cause was
lost unless she joined with the liberals. Her forces became
known as the "Cristinos."
Friars and secular priests went to war along with
the Carlists, weapons in hand, inciting their comrades to
carnage. They pressed Carlos to issue a decree, called the
Durango Decree, which ordered all foreigners who were
captured to be shot. This affected English sailors and
legionnaires who were fighting with the Cristinos. Other
priests became leaders of lawless bands which pillaged and
murdered. One of them, called Padre Merino, acquired the
nickname El Demonio del Castillo,, or the Demon of Castile.
He and his band swept from village to village demanding
tribute, robbing, destroying and killing. Others like him
went in advance of the Carlists in a kind of bulldozing oper-
ation, clearing the way. The priests and friars who remained
with their churches constituted an authentic fifth column
who worked with the enemy. Some of them even wormed
their way into the palace, became members of the Queen
Regent's camarilla and did their best to turn her against
her own liberal supporters.
The churchmen used their vast wealth to destroy the
legitimate government. At this time there were in Spain
4,141 religious houses with some 53,000 monks, friars and
nuns. About mid- 1834 cholera began ravaging Madrid. The
people raised the cry, "It's the work of the friars." A rumor
went about that the Jesuits had been poisoning the wells.
Although this rumor was false it was a symptom of the
hatred and suspicion in which the Jesuits were held. This
was the signal for attacks on the monasteries of the friars and
monks, and the Jesuit "residences." (Jesuits were neither
friars nor monks.)
The Carlist Wars Begin 115
Before the Madrid rioters had completed their work
they had pillaged and burned churches and conventos of
every description all over the city and killed at least a hun-
dred friars, monks and Jesuits. Those who escaped went
into hiding or fled to the Carlists. Again be it noted that
the burning of churches is nothing new in Spain. Episodes
of church burning have been more frequent under the mon-
archy than under non-monarchical regimes. They were symp-
toms of the people's sense of frustration in face of the
church's inveterate hostility toward their reforming move-
ments.
The next year, 1835, the attacks on the churches and
religious personnel were renewed in Saragossa and Barcelona
whence they spread to other parts of Spain and to the island
of Majorca. Everywhere there resounded cries of "Down
with the friars! Down with the Jesuits!" From the churches
and monasteries the mob turned to general destruction;
the archives were thrown out of government buildings and
burned; stores and factories were pillaged. The Captain
General of Madrid was taken from his headquarters and
shot; his body was dragged through the streets and finally
burned atop a pile of archives.
In desperation, Maria Cristina organized a government
composed of outstanding liberals. One of its first acts was
to expel the Jesuits the third such expulsion in Spanish
history. All monasteries and convents occupied by more
than twelve members of an order were declared suppressed.
A remarkably intelligent Spanish liberal who had been liv-
ing in exile in London, Juan Alvarez Mendizabal, had been
organizing a legion of English volunteers to help Cristina.
Now he came to Spain and indulged in some plain talk at
the palace.
"The time for half measures is past," he told her. "The
people are tired of your policy of playing fast and loose. It
is time to bring the war to a close, establish normalcy and
rebuild the country's economy. Unless you allow a free hand
to a truly liberal government the people will take the
law into their own hands/'
n6 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
The Queen Regent to all appearances bowed to his
advice. The militia was built up anew with unmarried con-
scripts between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. Reforms
were instituted. Mendizabal headed the new liberal govern-
ment, but it remained in power only eight months. Ham-
pered by the court clique it resigned. The court clique
began the old game of destroying the popular militia.
A remarkable event, typical of Spanish psychology, now
occurred. It was called "The Revolt of the Sergeants." It
was the night of August 12, 1836. The war had been going
badly for the Cristinos. The Carlists had captured large
areas of Spain and menaced Madrid. The Queen Regent was
at La Granja. The soldiers of the barracks adjoining the
palace had heard reports that the court clique was in secret
communication with the enemy. The garrison decided to go
over the heads of its officers and demand speech directly
with the Queen Regent. They elected a committee of ser-
geants. Several officers went with them and introduced them
to Cristina. She received them smiling and gracious and
asked why they had come. The sergeant who spoke for
them answered:
"We are fighting for liberty. Resistance to the universal
will that the Constitution be re-established in fact is not
liberty. It is not liberty to persecute and banish liberals or
to destroy the national militia. Above all, it is not liberty
to make secret compacts with the Carlists whose only excuse
for existence is that they are the foes of all liberty."
Cristina resorted to word fencing. "No, my sons," she
said, 'liberty is confidence in and respect for your Queen
and obedience to royal authority. Liberty is the orderly
process of achieving the rights of all subjects while having
respect for the rights of everyone."
The sergeants had heard this kind of parrot talk time
and again. They were unimpressed. When the Queen Re-
gent saw this she began to raise constitutional difficulties, to
make vague promises, to ask the sergeants to trust her. She
said they did not know all the facts. The sergeants sent word
to their comrades to ask for advice. They sent back the
The C artist Wars Begin 117
emphatic reply: "The Constitution must be re-established
at once or we will move on the government and set up a
revolutionary junta."
The Queen Regent was forced to give in. At one
o'clock on the morning of August 13 she signed the decree
wherein she said: "I command that the Constitution of 1812
be published pending the manifestation by the Cortes of the
will of the nation."
The ministers fled. One of the most obnoxious of them,
named Quesada, was caught and executed. The sergeants
did not subside In their demands until Cristina had ap-
pointed a new liberal ministry under the leadership of Jose
Maria Calatrava, an able statesman.
Elsewhere the militias began to deal drastically with
generals who showed themselves obviously disloyal. In the
Basque region a general named Mirasol was obliged to flee.
Escalera, who commanded the army of the north, was killed
by his soldiers as a traitor. The famous general Sarsfield,
who had once betrayed the liberal garrison of Cadiz, was
shot. A similar fate befell other officers and functionaries,
such as the governor of Vitoria, the Basque capital.
One aspect of this war was the intervention of the
English on the side of the Cristinos. This intervention was
by reason of the tripartite pact between England, Spain and
Portugal whereby Britain undertook to support the existing,
monarchies against the pretenders for Portugal also had
a pretender. The English had landed parties of sailors, to
which were added ten thousand volunteers. Once again
Spaniards were welcoming foreign assistance were not
closing ranks against every type of foreign aid, as the old
cliches have it.
In 1839 the English began suggesting peace. An able
Carlist soldier, General Moroto, declared himself open to
terms but the Apostolico group opposed him. Priests, Mars
and Jesuits fulminated against it, threatened Moroto with
excommunication and dire vengeance. But the Carlists now
were tasting defeat everywhere. They had been driven out
of Bilbao on a Christmas Day after a furious battle that
ii 8 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
had been waged in a snowstorm on the mountains overlook-
ing the city. The denunciations of the Apostolicos could not
stay the peace. On August 31, 1839, at Vergara, the Cris-
tinos' commander-in-chief, General Espartero, and the Carlist
General Moroto signed the treaty of peace in the presence
of the two armies. There were to be no reprisals; the Carlist
officers were to be incorporated into the regular army; the
Basque provinces, even though they had been active on the
side of the Carlists, were to be confirmed in their ancient
fueros or privileges.
Carlos fled the country. Several of his generals, led by
General Cabrera, continued the war for another nine months
in Aragon and Catalonia. Cabrera was one of the type of
cruel and treacherous generals with which Spain has been
plagued from that day to this. Shortly before the agreement
for peace he pretended to ask the advice of his officers on the
question of making peace or continuing the war. He caused
all those who spoke in favor of peace to be shot. Now that
peace was declared, Cristina also played a treacherous role,
so typical of the behavior of her late husband. Since she
no longer needed the liberals' support she turned against
them and began working to repeat the performances of her
predecessors in throwing the Constitution out of the win-
dow. Madrid rose in arms and the soldiers refused orders to
put down the rebellion.
Two political generals once more entered the picture,
one, Baldomero Espartero, a stout liberal; the other, Ramon
Maria Narvaez, one of the worst kind of reactionaries, who
believed in shooting and hanging his enemies. In one year
alone Narvaez had caused 214 of his enemies to be executed.
He was reported to have said on his deathbed, when his
father confessor admonished him that the time had come to
forgive his enemies: "I have no enemies. I have killed them
all."
The liberals were strong enough to oblige Cristina
to make Espartero her Prime Minister; he formed a strong
liberal government. Maria Cristina, in a fit of frustration,
abdicated as Queen Regent and hurried to France.
The Carlist Wars Begin 119
Isabel II: Unhappy Child Queen
Little Queen Isabel, not quite ten years old, was quite
bewildered by these disordered events. General Espartero be-
came regent and began to acquire an extraordinary taste for
political power. From a defender of democratic processes
he devolved into an inept and blundering statesman, a dicta-
tor who clung to the military man's concept of force as the
best solution of social and political problems. His intentions
were honest; he never became liberalism's avowed enemy;
but he could not shake off the natural fixations of the mili-
tary mind. When his adventure in statesmanship failed he
went to live quietly in England.
There was now witnessed an extraordinary example of
the operations of the new breed of political generals that
had come into power in the first two decades of this century.
On the night of October 7, 1841, the young Queen
Isabel was chatting gaily with her governess, the Countess
Mina, widow of the famed liberal general, Francisco Mina,
and her younger sister Fernanda about her plans for her
eleventh birthday three days later. She was startled by a
tumult outside the palace, then disturbances on the great
stairway that led to the palace's main portal. Voices were
raised in anger. Shots began flying. A bullet crashed through
a windowpane and planted itself in a wall.
"Oh, don't let them kill me!" cried the Queen in terror,
as she and her sister fled to another part of the palace*
A number of generals had formed a plot to kidnap the
Queen and had come with several companies of soldiers to
storm the palace and carry out their intentions.
Some of the regular palace guards were in the conspir-
acy. But a gallant group of only eighteen of the Queen's
personal bodyguard stood at the head of the grand staircase
and fought off the attackers all through the night. It was
not until morning that the national militia came to sur-
round the besiegers. Some of the mutinous generals tried
to escape hidden in coal carts. All were caught, tried and
iso Hapsburgs and Bourbons
executed. The country was torn by Carlist disorders and
other revolutionary events for another two years. A full-
scale war of secession from Spain was raging in all the four
provinces of Catalonia. It was an exceedingly troubled Spain
that saw Isabel, who had just turned thirteen, declared to be
of age, and Spain's reigning Queen, on November 8, 1843.
Under the girl Queen and the sinister influences that im-
mediately closed ranks around her, Spain's struggle for
freedom was fated to begin all over again.
At this point the church again entered the picture and
throne, altar and army formed a strong triple alliance.
Little Isabel came under the influence of an extraor-
dinary pair, an archbishop who went by the popular name
of Padre Claret, and a nun called Sor Patrocinio. She al-
lowed herself to become known as "the bleeding nun" be-
cause she claimed to have miraculously impressed on her
body the five wounds of the Saviour the stigmata.
Padre Antonio Maria Claret was a Catalan and, like
most men of his race, possessed of unusual energy. His ca-
pacity for doing many things at a time writing pamphlets
and books, preaching in all the regions of Spain, founding
and propagating a religious order, governing an archdiocese
in Cuba, looking out for the interests of Rome, and setting
the political course of the Queen seemed almost incredible.
It was estimated that during the last thirty years of his life
he preached a sermon a day. As the Queen's father confessor
he advised her on matters of conscience and government.
Several times he and Sor Patrocinio were driven from the
court by popular indignation. Once he went off to his
archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba. But the pair always re-
turned. Once he resigned and went to Rome to render an
accounting to Pope Pius IX, who obliged him to return.
There was no peace in Isabel's reign, which lasted until
1868. Uprising followed uprising: Carlism, apostolicism,
liberalism, regionalism. The church stormed when, in 1855,
Isabel was asked to sign a law for the sale of excessive church
lands. The papal nuncio, the bleeding nun and a camarilla
of friars, monks and Jesuits brought pressure on her not to
The Carlist Wars Begin 121
sign the measure. The parliamentary government insisted.
Isabel, caught between the church and the Cortes, threatened
to abdicate. The Cortes threatened to declare her throne
vacant. The palace clique hatched up a plot whereby the
Queen would flee to the Basque provinces and there issue a
manifiesto to the people disavowing the liberal government.
The plot was discovered. In the end she signed the act, but
to those about her she made known her intention of undoing
it at the earliest possible moment.
Isabel by this time was in the twenty-fifth year of her
life. She was a product of the school that bred her. Its
lessons of intrigues, cunning, double-dealing, violence, con-
tempt for justice and for common decency had all left their
marks on her. They had bred in her a spirit of cynicism
which was the key to her conduct. Even though she was
surrounded by so many church people, her succession of
gentlemen friends became an open scandal a theme of the
public gossips and even the press.
Isabel's was a many-sided character; she was generous,
easily moved and readily duped; she was plucky and brave
and had to be restrained forcibly from intervening in situa-
tions of danger and violence; she was both vindictive and
merciful vindictive toward politicians who thwarted her;
merciful toward persons who had done her an injury. One
day a half-crazed priest stabbed her as she was leaving the
palace. With great speed he was condemned to be executed.
Isabel, who was not seriously injured, almost provoked a
cabinet crisis in her efforts to save him. When opposing
, forces clashed in the street she asked sorrowfully: "Why
cannot Spaniards be friends?" She had to be restrained from
attempting to reconcile them then and there. Yet, like her
father, Fernando, she could betray with a smile. This good-
hearted, capricious, cynical and irresponsible young Queen
carried on for a quarter century. At length, in the year
1868, the country in self-defense deposed her and sent her
into an exile from which she would never return.
The people thought they had done with the Bourbons
forever. Everywhere on the walls of Madrid and of the
122 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
other cities of Spain one saw in large letters: "Cayo para
siempre la raza espurea de los Borbones^ en justo castigo de
su peruersidad" That is: "Forever has fallen the bastard
race of the Bourbons in just punishment for its perversity."
A young king of the house of Savoy was brought in
from Italy Amadeo I. He was an earnest young man who
tried to do well and abolish abuses. It was a hopeless task.
The reactionaries sabotaged his efforts. The people mur-
mured that he was not very Spanish. He just didn't fit.
After less than two years on the throne he abdicated to
make way for a Republic.
Spain's First Republic
In February, 1873, Spain's first Republic came into be-
ing almost on the spur of the moment and without advance
planning. The Republican party was still a minority. Its
main strength lay in the Catalan capital, Barcelona, where it
had been born just about thirty years previously in 1842
amid turbulent scenes.
The first phenomenon of the new Republic was the rise
of the Federalists, who asserted the rights of the regions to
self-government under a federal system. The traditional
principle of regional self-sufficiency under ancient fueros or
privileges once again asserted its claims. At Barcelona the
Catalans declared their four provinces, consisting of Gerona,
Barcelona, Lerida and Tarragona, to be a separate autono-
mous region under the ancient name of Generalitat, or
Generality, of Catalunya. All over Spain local governmental
juntas made their appearances, harking back once more to
the comunidades which had been suppressed under the
centralizing monarchy. While the central government's
Cortes was busy elaborating a federal constitution, the
pueblos everywhere were returning to their ancient mu-
nicipal self-rule. The powers they claimed were hardly
more than those enjoyed by almost any American city, and
often less. But their action was a challenge to the "unifying"
system imposed upon them by the Hapsburgs and Bourbons.
The C artist Wars Begin 123
The infant Republic had some severe growing pains but
would have adjusted itself to its normal growth in due time
had not the political generals once more intervened with a
pronunciamiento that brutally cut short its life. At five
o'clock in the morning of January 3, 1874, the Republic a
bare eleven months old, while the Cortes was sitting in an
all-night session, General Pavia, who was the Governor Gen-
eral of Madrid, seized power in the name of the army. Dur-
ing the night he had thrown troops around the building.
Now the members and the cabinet ministers who were also
there were startled by the sharp and peremptory notes of a
bugle call. The War Minister went outside where he met
General Pavia and ordered him to return at once to the bar-
racks with his troops. Arrogantly Pavia replied: "I give
the deputies a few minutes to lay down their authority and
march out of the building. If they do not comply in a
reasonable time I will act."
Within a matter of hours a "strong*' military govern-
ment with some civilian members had been formed, although
the Republic was not immediately dissolved. Constitutional
guarantees were suspended. The old-style repressions were
resumed. Still the Republic existed in name. On Christmas
Eve, of that same year, the name was likewise suppressed.
On that night General Martinez Campos "pronounced" the
Republic at an end and proclaimed Isabel's son King as
Alfonso XII. After the New Year Alfonso returned from his
exile and ascended the throne.
The liberals had indeed made mistakes. In a trial-and-
error period they had had four Presidents. But in its eleven
months of life and a form of government utterly new, what
the Republic was attempting to do was no more than a lab-
oratory experiment which, with the years, promised more
fruitful issue. The sneer, "The first Spanish Republic had
four Presidents in a year," is frequently bandied by those
whose interest it is to recite their hackneyed refrain that
"Spaniards are unable to govern themselves."
Canovas del Castillo became the new political leader
under Alfonso XII. He was an able statesman although no
124 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
Mend of democracy. One of his principal objectives was to
clip the wings of the generals. He insisted on a free press,
but did not trust the people to have a voice in the govern-
ment. He labored at a new constitution and in the course of
the debates uttered the famous words: "Son espanoles lo$
que no pueden ser otra cosa! 3 That is: "They are Spaniards
who cannot be anything else/' He announced that he had
come "to galvanize the political corpse of Spain." While this
galvanizing process was still under way, Alfonso, in 1885,
died of tuberculosis, after ten years on the throne. His
widow, Queen Cristina, gave birth to a son who at once
became King under the title of Alfonso XIII he who was
destined to be the last of the Bourbons. Cristina ruled in his
name.
Under the regency, Canovas, who saw the dangers of a
one-party monopoly, worked out a system whereby conserva-
tives and moderate liberals alternately took office summed
up in the Spanish expression, "changing the guard/' The
regency embarked on military campaigns in Cuba and the
Philippines. The Spanish- American War of 1898 liquidated
what was left of the once vast Spanish empire.
Alfonso XIII: Last of the Bourbons
In 1902, at the age of sixteen, "the Boy King" Alfonso
XIII became Spam's full-fledged sovereign. That was the
year in which the United States Rough Rider President,
"Teddy" Roosevelt, was getting his stride.
The church and the generals immediately moved in to
take charge of the youthful King according to what had
now become established procedure. But Alfonso really cared
for the generals more than for the church. His favorite
cronies were generals, and like them he had profound con-
tempt for civilian authority. One of the military campaigns
of his reign was the disastrous Moroccan adventure of 1921
which cost the lives of so many Spaniards, and which resulted
in the Anual massacre at the hands of desert tribesmen. His
civilian cabinet had tried to avert the disaster. After that
The Car list Wars Begin 125
ill-fated war, letters written by Alfonso were found in which
he called his War Minister an old fool and told his generals
to pay no attention to him but to do as they pleased. It was
also revealed that he himself had given the orders that re-
sulted in this debacle. Spaniards laid numerous crimes of
misgoverament at his door, but this was the greatest and the
one they never forgave this and what went with it, such
as surrendering his powers to the dictatorship that followed
the African campaign.
One of the darkest blots on Alfonso's early life on the
throne was the execution of the young educator Francisco
Ferrer in 1909. He was a pacifist and advanced thinker who
had founded "the modern school" at Barcelona. Soon similar
schools were established in several other places. The move-
ment incurred the deep hatred of the church, and especially
of the Jesuits, because of its liberal character and of the fact
that it barred religious instruction. Their chance to liqui-
date him came in 1906 when someone threw a bomb at the
King. Ferrer was accused of the crime, but a civil court
found no evidence against him and acquitted him. His
enemies, unplacated, merely awaited another chance to get
at him.
This came in 1909 when a wave of mob action and
church action swept over Barcelona. It had been incited by
that arch-demagogue, Alejandro Lerroux, and was completely
unrelated to Ferrer's educational activities. Ferrer himself
was absent on a visit to London. On his return he was seized
and accused as the conspiratorial brains of the disorders.
He was placed in Barcelona's military prison, Mont-
juich. Evidence was fabricated against him. No chances were
taken that this time a fair-minded civilian court would ab-
solve him. A military court was set up to pass a sentence on
him which had been ordained in advance. The court did
not allow the presentation of evidence proving his innocence.
He was sentenced to death.
The entire Western Hemisphere was shocked. Appeals
went to Madrid from European countries, from the United
States and Latin America from all points of the compass.
126 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
The church people surrounding Alfonso steeled him to re-
sist. Despite all the appeals, Ferrer was shot.
Spain's liberal groups were entirely convinced, and de-
clare to this day, that the execution was engineered by the
Jesuits. But the King himself never forgave those Spaniards
who had uttered their protests.
A short time after this tragedy the King was obliged to
accept as his Prime Minister a powerful foe of the church
insofar as related to its abuses and extraordinary political
power. This man was Jose Canalejas y Mendez. The issue
he raised was whether the church and the religious orders
should obey the laws of the land like others in Spain. The
church clung to the canonical law of "exemptions" where-
under it claimed churchmen to be exempt from the reach
of secular law, whether civil or criminal, without the
church's special permission in any particular case. The
church took the position that to make the church obey the
laws of the country was an attack on its "rights."
The 'laws of association/' which the church disregarded,
required the registration of religious houses and their mem-
bers; the payment of taxes on industrial and commercial
enterprises conducted by religious orders; a check on the
growth of such orders; religious freedom for all without
church interference. The bishops, backed by the Vatican,
led a furious crusade against the government. Canalejas
retaliated by "padlocking" the frontier against the influx of
new religious orders and by breaking off diplomatic relations
with the Vatican.
When a Eucharistic Congress was held in Madrid, Al-
fonso made it the occasion for setting himself right with the
church. The Congress closed with an elaborate procession
which wound through the principal streets toward the royal
palace. The prelates carrying and accompanying the Blessed
Sacrament in Catholic doctrine the living body of Christ
mounted the steps, advanced to the throne room and there
deposited the golden monstrance. Then the King and all
his family were solemnly blessed by the Primate. This was
the symbol that the church had retained its rightful place
The Carlist Wars Begin 127
in the palace. Soon thereafter Canalejas was shot In the back
and killed while he stood in a street looking into the show
window of a bookshop.
Canalejas, like so many Spaniards who have exerted
themselves to curb the political powers and the excessive
wealth of the church, was a Catholic. Such men were ex-
ponents of a school of thought concerning the relations be-
tween church and state known as anticlericalism & phe-
nomenon familiar in all the Catholic countries of Europe,
such as Italy, France and others, all of which have had their
political wars with the church. Anticlericalism is not anti-
Catholicism as is frequently supposed. On the contrary its
leaders say it is pro-Catholicism in the sense that it seeks to
save the church from the corrupting influences that lead
to its degeneration a kind of secular reform movement.
Alfonso sealed his own fate as King when he ordered the
execution, in 1930, of Captains Fermin Galdn and Angel
Garcia Hernandez who as has already been mentioned
had prematurely declared the Republic at Jaca in the prov-
ince of Huesca. The country was stirred to its depths to
learn that the captains had been shot by a firing squad that
afternoon of Sunday, December 14. The story o what hap-
pened after that how on April 12, 1931, the people voted
to get rid of Alfonso, and how two days later he went into
exile has been told in the earlier part of this book.
Bitter indeed were the verdicts which Alfonso's fellow
Spaniards pronounced upon him. Said the author Vicente
Blasco Ibanez: "Alfonso XIII ... is a worthy descendant
of Fernando VII. Nothing he touches escapes contamina-
tion. He is like the proverbial pitch that clings and defiles.
. The Russia of the czars alone was capable of offering
such a spectacle of cruel and illiterate generals, of brawling
and grotesque generals, scouring the entire country and
passing the death sentence on thought."
While Alfonso was still on the throne, another Spanish
literary figure, Gonzalo de Reparaz, dared write to him:
"Your majesty ever deceives, is an inveterate perjurer, and
you will end by being deceived yourself. Your mental facul-
is8 Hapsburgs and Bourbons
ties being few and base, large and extensive are your audaci-
ties. You have made the throne an agency of commerce, us-
ing your high majesty to accumulate millions.'*
Another group of intellectuals, in a manifesto to the
nation, charged that the monarchy under Alfonso "has been
an association of particular groups, who live parasitically
upon the Spanish organism, using the public power to defend
the partial interests they represent/' This manifesto was
signed by Dr. Gregorio Maranon, Perez de Alaya and Jose
Ortega y Gasset.
Alfonso was the most press-agented King Spain ever had.
He had been assiduously presented to the American public
as the debonair, lighthearted and sometimes mischievous
young man who sat on his throne like a squirming school-
boy. In maturer years he was pictured as dashing and gal-
lant, a ruler who thought only of Spam's happiness. Old and
cynical Europe knew better than to accept this portrait. The
American press, in its zeal for picturesque copy, had neg-
lected to take note of the fundamentals of the situation in
Spain. Moreover it depended almost entirely on news sent
out by Spanish correspondents who, for whatever reason, sent
out news heavily slanted in the monarchy's favor. Americans
were extremely surprised on that April day of 1931 when
they read that the Spaniards had thrown out their King.
Part Four SECOND REPUBLIC: GALLANT
ADVENTURE
1 1 Provisional Government and New
Constitution
Spain's second Republic may be regarded as the fifth
phase in its people's struggle for freedom. It was a gallant
adventure. Its leaders were peace-loving men earnestly de-
voted to the welfare of their country. The Republic they
had ushered in without the shedding of blood and without
violence, and which had been hailed everywhere with such
expressions of confidence and joy, was born to be crucified.
Knowing their country's history they knew also that such
things could happen, but they thoughtfully explored every
means to avert such a calamity, and were sure that this time
popular government would triumph over its foes.
At Madrid a provisional government was set up to pre-
pare the way for national elections and the calling of a con-
stitutional convention. The Constitution of Cadiz would
provide inspiration, but the pattern would have to be differ-
ent because things had greatly changed since 1812 when that
Constitution was promulgated. Unlike that document, the
new constitution to be proposed would no longer make
its bow to the King. Nor would it proclaim the supremacy
of the Roman Catholic religion as that Constitution had
done. There would be complete separation of church and
*state, with freedom of conscience and open worship for all.
While the provisional government consolidated its
forces at Madrid, the Catalan and the Basque regions, cen-
tered respectively at Barcelona and Bilbao, organized pro-
129
130 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
visional autonomous regimes under the Republic. Both
Catalans and Basques had collaborated in the Republican
movement and had reached an understanding with the other
liberal leaders that their statutes o autonomy within the
framework of the Spanish state would be granted by the new
Cortes. The issue was not separatism but regionalism.
The President of the provisional Republic was Niceto
Alcala Zamora, a staunch Catholic of liberal tendencies.
Other stalwart Catholics, such as Miguel Maura, for instance,
became cabinet members. The new government did not
intend to be a runaway anti-church affair; it merely intended
to hold the political church within bounds as had been done
in so many other Catholic countries, and notably in neigh-
boring France.
The real moving spirit of the new order was an intellec-
tual, Don Manuel Azana, the War Minister. Don Manuel
was a writer of plays and books, who had once studied the-
ology. He had been the brains of the Republican revolution-
ary movement and was now the top brain in the government.
His position as War Minister was a key post, for one of the
pressing needs of the hour was to bring the army within the
Republican framework. Army and church were recognized
as its two chief potential enemies.
In a spirit of magnanimity, Don Manuel induced the
government to issue a decree allowing all officers to leave
the service with full pay, if they so desired. It was hoped
to reduce the threat of an army top-heavy with generals and
other high-ranking officers. The plan did not work out as
expected. The younger officers left in considerable numbers
to seek new careers in civilian life. The older top-level offi-
cers clung to the army. In the back of their minds lurked the
idea of coming forward at the right time to overthrow the
new Republic, just as the generals had overthrown the Re-
public of 1873.
Although freedom of the press was one of the cardinal
Republican principles, there was, in fact, a considerable
censorship. This was excused on the ground that it was
necessary in the turbulent transitional period. It was ex-
Provisional Government and New Constitution 131
plained that censorship would be abolished as soon as things
had quieted down. Occasionally a newspaper was suspended
for a time. The leading monarchist and other rightist papers
of Madrid, such as the monarchist A. B.C. and the Jesuit-
controlled El Debate^ appeared as usual. They were natu-
rally critical of the Republic and criticisms were tolerated
within what the provisional government considered reason-
able limits. But at times the rightist press became rabid and
seemed to be inciting the public to violence. These out-
bursts were met with heavy fines and suspensions. As I came
from the land of the free press I could not understand these
curbs on the opposition; I thought they were unduly severe.
Later I understood the government's fears better, though I
still could not accept the theory of censorship. I still believe
that it was, as the Spaniards put it, contraproducente. Which
is to say that it backfired.
On a Sunday in May certain statements in the monar-
chist A. B.C. stirred the Madrid populace to fury. A mob
gathered in front of its building in Madrid and also attacked
the monarchist club. It then marched to a Jesuit church in
the center of Madrid and set it afire. On the walls of the
church they chalked up the inscription, "The Justice of the
People on Thieves/' The Jesuits were the particular objects
of popular hate; they were looked upon as the chief enemies
of popular government.
The day after the rioting in Madrid, I was in the Cata-
lan government's palace at Barcelona. While a group was
discussing the events in Madrid an official came in and an-
nounced: "They're burning the churches and convents in
Madrid." In the Spanish sense a convento is the abode of
priests who belong to some religious order. Churches and
conventos were, in fact, being burned in most of the large
cities of Spain, such as Malaga, Seville, Valencia, Granada
and Murcia an old story in Spain.
Barcelona too might now have been the scene of a
holocaust. When a Barcelona populace goes in for such
things it becomes devastating. However, the Catalan gov-
ernment determined that Catalonia should not be disgraced.
132 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
It called out the Civil Guard, the army and the police and
stationed them wherever there was a church that might be
the object of mob action. In the center of the city on the
Calle Caspe was a Jesuit college. Here mounted troops
stood guard day and night. The government under Presi-
dent Francesc Macia did an admirable job of maintaining
order. Not a church was burned in all the four Catalan
provinces.
Cardinal Segura's Call to Arms
On May i, Pedro Cardinal Segura y Saez, the Primate
of Spain, from the church's historical citadel at Toledo had
issued a call to arms. He summoned Catholics to embark on
political action as Catholics, rather than as Spaniards. His
pastoral letter had been read in a number of churches on
the very Sunday on which the rioting erupted. The out-
raged provisional government, which was also dominantly
Catholic, voted that the Cardinal would have to leave Spain.
Miguel Maura, Catholic Minister of the Interior, who had
previously served in the monarchy's cabinet, issued the order
for Segura's departure. While Madrid's churches were still
burning, the Cardinal, dressed as a simple priest and travel-
ing incognito, accompanied by his brother and his secretary,
also in clerical garb, reached San Sebastian and crossed into
France.
In the aftermath, Segura lost the primacy of Spain.
After the fall of the Republic he became the Cardinal Arch-
bishop of Seville. He had made no bones about being one
of the Republic's arch-enemies. Segura had a Promethean
spirit in defense of principles in which he believed with
all his soul. He was no truckler fawning on those at whose
hands he could obtain advantage and preference, as did so
many of his colleagues. The man who became his successor
at Toledo under the fascist regime, Enrique Cardinal Pla y
Daniel, had begun fawning on Franco from the moment the
general took arms to destroy the Republic. He allowed
Provisional Government and New Constitution 133
Franco to set up his headquarters in the Salamanca episcopal
palace. Cardinal Segura would not have done such a thing.
Segura's letter began with a eulogy of the late King
Alfonso XIII who had first made him a bishop and, in time,
had placed him in the Primate's seat at Toledo. He offered
"a memorial of gratitude to His Majesty, Don Alfonso XIII,
the King, who during his reign understood how to serve the
ancient traditions of faith and piety," and then asked: "How
can we forget his devotion to the Holy See, or that it was he
who consecrated Spain to the Heart of Jesus? ... It was
always very Christian and very Spanish to offer piety to a
fallen majesty, especially when his misfortune leaves him
without hope of gestures of gratitude/*
He exhorted all Catholics, regardless of party, and as
a religious duty which they could not evade, to close ranks
in defense of the church under the banner of Accion Cato-
lica. His call to arms infuriated all Republican supporters
and sympathizers.
The campaign leading to the June elections for a new
Constituent Cortes was exciting and bitter. Billboards and
sides of houses everywhere were covered with posters once
again. They fairly screamed with barbed slogans and epi-
grams, as well as with embattled and sometimes vituperative
specimens of the pictorial art in flashing colors.
In due course came the elections and once again the Re-
publican forces were victorious, this time by a far greater
margin than at the municipal elections of April 12. The
Republican coalition had 365 Cortes seats out of a total of
415, The appeal of Cardinal Segura, plus the campaigns of
the monarchists, Carlists and the generals, had been able to
capture a minority of only 50. Despite the minority bloc's
overwhelming defeat, it had been allowed more deputies
under the system of proportional representation, by which
it automatically obtained a certain number of deputies in
each circumscription, however small its vote, than it would
have obtained had it been obliged to elect its deputies one
by one. There was not a single "red" whether commu-
nist, Trotskyite, or syndicalist in the Republican ranks.
Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
Framing the New Constitution
The Cortes promptly turned its attention toward elab-
orating the new constitution. There was a bitter fight over
the autonomy statutes for the Basques and the Catalans,
especially the latter. Catalonia had been pitted for centuries
against the rest of Spain on the question of Catalan rights.
Fierce prejudices against the Catalan assertions of rights
could not be abated so easily by a political agreement.
Many Republicans in the Cortes thought the Catalans were
demanding too much.
The large Catalan delegation, headed by the Catalan
hero, President Francesc Macia, were insistent. "Well not
take cat for rabbit this time," warned Macia, alluding to the
repeated deceptions his people had suffered under the mon-
archy. And so, after a protracted struggle, the Catalans got
rabbit in the form of an ample autonomy statute which gave
them the executive power, a parliament and the adminis-
tration of justice. It also had the taxing power and control
of the police and the local military regime. It was a great
day in Barcelona when at length the ancient Catalan Cor is,
which had been abolished for several centuries, sprang into
action again and began to make laws. There was less dif-
ficulty about granting a self-rule statute to the Basques, the
most conservative people in Spain.
The new constitution was worked out by the Cortes
in somewhat more than five months. Begun in late June, it
was finally approved December 9, 1931. Many voices were
raised to say the Cortes had wasted time. Yet five months
is not a long time in which to perfect so important a polit-
ical document. The adoption of the United States Consti-
tution took nearly two years.
The Constitution adopted the type of parliamentary
government familiar in Europe, but with only one chamber.
This was intended to bring it closer to the people and avoid
the pitfalls of a senate sharing less liberal sentiments. Tak-
ing a note from the 1812 Constitution of Cadiz and im-
Provisional Government and New Constitution 135
proving on it, it declared Spain to be "a democratic Repub-
lic of workers of all classes/'
The Constitution renounced war as an instrument of
international policy. It set up an elaborate system for the
protection of constitutional rights; a special law court known
as the Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees was formed
for this purpose. On its face it was airtight against another
seizure of power by a dictatorship but no constitution can
safeguard itself against overwhelming violence such as a
military uprising. Further, the Constitution gave the vote
to women for the first time in Spain, a liberalizing step
which not even the turbulent revolution of neighboring
France had been able to achieve. It laid the groundwork for
the passage of liberal laws affecting marriage and divorce
and it also initiated a most important agrarian program
whereby the great latifundias would be partly broken up so
that peasants could be settled on the land either individually
or in cooperative communities.
The big battle was waged over the article providing
for the separation of church and state, Article 26, and the
supplementary laws that would have to follow. Actually the
Republican government, in sponsoring the article and the
laws, took care not to place itself in the position of making
war on the church. It maintained an ambassador at the
Vatican under the still existing concordat's terms, and the
Vatican had a papal nuncio at Madrid in the person of
Monsignor later Cardinal Tedeschini, who was dean of
the diplomatic corps. The government worked in constant
consultation with the nuncio with a view to reconciling
divergent views insofar as was possible. For its part it re-
nounced any benefits it might have derived under the con-
cordat, such as the appointment of bishops and ecclesiastical
dignitaries. It merely reserved the right of insisting that
such dignitaries be Spaniards and that they not engage in
activities hostile to the state.
The nuncio was complaisant enough to accept certain
necessary implications of the changed situation under the
Republic, but this was not true of the Spanish church whose
136 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
hierarchy and partisan press, like the Jesuit-dominated daily
El Debate , and the monarchist A. B.C., indulged in violent
outbursts against all that of necessity proceeded from the
Republican thesis of church and state separation.
By Article 26 and the laws which later supplemented
it the religious orders were brought under strict control;
they would not be allowed to engage in competitive com-
merce and with this objective could only retain as much*
property as they needed for their subsistence; their supe-
riors, officials and members as well as their governing stat-
utes must be registered; the state w r ould pay for the property
expropriated (instead of seizing it outright as was done
several times under the Catholic monarchy). The orders
would not be allowed to teach anyone, except candidates
for entry into the orders. The Jesuit order was dissolved
(not expelled) as a danger to the security of the state, as it
had already been dissolved or expelled five times under the
Catholic monarchy.
State support of the clergy was to end after two years.
All church schools were abolished and education was left
in the hands of the state or of non-privileged religious organ-
izations. A provision which particularly angered the church
was the secularization of the cemeteries. This was intended
to prevent the church from discriminating against anti-
clerical liberals by denying them burial among other Chris-
tians. The rights of civil marriage and of divorce also
aroused ecclesiastical wrath.
The Republic set forth its attitude toward the church
in a preamble to its proposed religious law in the course of
which it declared its "absolute neutrality in religious mat-
ters/' and said also that 'liberty of religion and of con-
science are generally accepted as being liberties limited to
that which is purely religious, in which there must be no
mixture of politics or confusion between the church and the
state. For that reason political reunions in the churches are
prohibited and open-air meetings strictly regulated like any
other open-air meeting. Religious bodies must submit to the
law of associations."
Provisional Government and New Constitution 137
The church pressure on even the liberal deputies to
prevent the enactment of these measures was so great that
many of them, on the final test, abstained from voting.
Among the abstentionists were the Catholic Basques. Most
of the Catholic Catalans, however, were confirmed anti-
clericals, and accepted the measures.
The church went so far as to bring the Holy Office and
the Inquisition into operation in its warfare against the Re-
publican measures. For the Holy Office has never been
dead in Spain. Its powers of inquisition remained intact
so far as the church was concerned. True, since the last
heretic, Cayetano Ripoli, a schoolmaster of Valencia, had
been condemned by the Holy Office in 1827 to be burned
alive, and had later by a merciful dispensation merely been
hanged and his body thrown to a mob, no Spaniard had
been handed over to the "secular arm" by the church. But
it had renounced none of its powers of branding members
as heretics, with all that was implied in the way of ecclesias-
tical penalties and social ostracism. The victim in this case
was the Canon Luis Lopez Doriga, dean of the chapter of
Granada Cathedral. Padre Luis had a popular following
in Granada and had been elected to the Cortes. There he
showed himself a man of liberal sentiments; he refused to
bow to ecclesiastical pressure in the matter of opposing the
Republic's liberating laws. He had joined the Radical So-
cialist party. And so in due time the "Ecclesiastical Bulle-
tin" of the Archdiocese of Granada, on "orders of the Sacred
Congregation of the Holy Office," published an edict, ex-
communicating the dean of the cathedral chapter and de-
priving him of the benefices of his church office.
Canon Lopez Doriga did not retreat. At a testimonial
meeting which was tendered him thereafter at Madrid
(March 25, 1932) he made a speech in which he said that,
having been elected by the votes of thousands of fellow
citizens, he came to Madrid with the avowed intention of
doing his duty as a Spaniard even though he well knew that
by so acting he risked the loss of possessions, of honors, of
preferment and of his personal tranquillity. He said:
138 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
Nevertheless, in the course of the parliamentary debates I have,
wished to be true to my principles. When the separation of church
and state was under discussion, I voted in favor thereof because I
believed that among the duties of Catholics was that of respect for
the constituted power. As to divorce, I believed that for Catholics
there could be neither divorce nor non-sacramental marriage, but I
did not agree that this rule could be imposed on non-Catholics. When
I decided to enter upon political life I became a member of the Radi-
cal Socialist party because I am a democrat, I am a radical and a
socialist. I do not believe that there can be justice so long as existing
concepts of the nature of property are not modified. . . .
I have been excommunicated by the Holy Office and its arm of
the Inquisition as having incurred the penalties of Canon 2314 and
being therefore considered as a formal heretic. I am incapable of
committing an offense against the universal and divine society to
which Catholic believers render obedience. But I can stand in op-
position to Pharisees. It is these Pharisaical elements that have stifled
the true soul of the church, have spread the poison of hate and have
turned the people against it. But I go with the people.
It is not spiritual, but material, power such men worship. And
when they are asked to explain their conduct their hypocrisy prompts
them to reply that it is for the glory of God. If a Catholic wishes to
demonstrate the contrary he has to renounce his material goods.
Priests must labor like St. Paul with their hands in order to administer
to their necessities and good Catholics have the obligation of never
resorting to violence, which never is countenanced by the true doctrine
of working for the glory of God.
There were, and doubtless still are, many priests In
Spain to share the sentiments so eloquently expressed by
the Canon Lopez Doriga. But he himself has explained
why few of them dared to express and act on such principles.
There has been much misrepresentation concerning the
scope of the new church legislation. It has been said, for
instance, that ending state pay for the clergy left them desti-
tute. But this pay was not to be ended until after two years.
By then the rightists had obtained control of the govern-
ment and continued the payments. When the Republicans
came back they thought better of their previous action and
continued them also. Thus payments to the clergy equal
to about five million dollars a year were never abolished.
The reason for closing the church schools was that they
were used to indoctrinate children and teach them that Re-
Provisional Government and New Constitution 139
publican and other liberal ideas were sinful. The popular
feeling about this was very strong. But it is inexact to say
that the closing of those schools left some forty or fifty
thousand children without the advantage of schools. What
actually happened was that the church schools continued
in disguise; they were set up as private secular schools ap-
proved by the bishops for Catholic children. Nuns and
clerical teachers in lay garb conducted a large part of the
classes. I was unable to find any lack of educational op-
portunities because of the closing of these schools. On the
contrary, educational opportunities were increased and
standards elevated in the state common school system.
However, the church was not deprived of its right of
religious instruction. Title 4 of the religious law provided:
"The church may maintain centers of instruction destined
to the imparting of its respective doctrines and to the forma-
tion of its members, but subject to the inspection of the
state to insure that there be taught no doctrines which are
attempts upon the security of the state/*
The Constitution's provision for the nationalization of
church property was misrepresented abroad, especially in
the American press which gave lurid accounts of the seizure
of churches when, in fact, there was no such thing. It was
strictly a measure of conservation. Its underlying idea might
be compared to the principle involved in American legisla-
tion for the nationalization of natural resources, namely
that these belonged to the people. The Republican gov-
ernment held that the churches, their treasures and other
ecclesiastical property were of the national patrimony and
so belonged to the nation. It was not the private property
of the bishops and clergy to be disposed of at will. There
was much complaint that the church had sold art treasures,
altars and even doors of churches to antiquarian collectors.
The Republican government now undertook the burden
of repairs and maintenance while there was not the least
interference with the ecclesiastical use therof. This was far
different from the procedure of the French Revolution which
; seized the property and placed it on sale, so that to this day
140 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
you may see old French churches used as stables, wine cellars
or warehouses.
After the Constitution's adoption, the provisional gov-
ernment was transformed into the permanent Constitutional
Republic. Alcala Zamora became the first Constitutional
President. Spaniards, with their talent for inventing nick-
names, began calling him Betas Old Boots. Don Manuel
Azana, who as Minister of War had also been a kind of
de facto Prime Minister, now became the Prime Minister
officially. Spaniards looked upon him as the incarnation of
the Republic itself.
With the Constitutional Republic firmly in the saddle,
it had other problems to solve: there were questions of pub-
lic order; the continued sniping of the rightists; acts of
violence committed by the Civil Guard and some other
armed forces in the old style of the monarchy; land reform
problems; peasant uprisings; revolutionary golpes; revolu-
tionary strikes by the anarcho-syndicalists; attempted mili-
tary pronunciamientos* Looking back over this period it
seems that as a reporter I was covering one revolutionary at-
tempt after another.
The prisons and concentration camps in the North
African colonies such as Rio de Oro, as well as prison ships
in Barcelona harbor, were filled with revolutionary terror-
ists, mainly the anarchists. The government was determined
to maintain order at all costs, even though it realized that
in antagonizing certain sectors of revolutionary-minded
workers it would have to pay the penalty for alienating the
sympathy of such elements. The anarcho-syndicalist golpes }
which struck now here, now there, in different communities,
followed a peculiar philosophy. They were never expected
to win; they were intended to keep the revolutionary spirit
alive among the workers, as a kind of psychological warfare
against society, on the theory that this was the way to pre-
pare the workers for the revolutionary moment. With great
impartiality the anarcho-syndicalists had pursued the same
tactics under the monarchy. Among the retaliatory measures
was the suppression for long periods of the leading anarcho-
Provisional Government and New Constitution 141
syndicalist daily newspaper, Solidaridad Obrera, or "Labor
Solidarity/'
The Communist movement was negligible. A Com-
munist organizer, Ramon Casanelies, a Spaniard who had
fled from justice under the monarchy, came back from
Russia. He was promptly shipped over the border and ad-
vised to return to Russia. Somewhat later, when he stole
in again, he was killed in a motorcycle accident. The Re-
public continued the policy of the monarchy of having no
diplomatic relations with Russia.
There were also spontaneous outbursts of workers and
peasants in various parts of Spain. In one town, La Fal-
guera, in Asturias, the entire working population of about
three thousand struck for nine months and endured hunger
and misery to defend older workmen against arbitrary dis-
missal.
While the Cortes Constituyentes still was sitting, power-
ful forces were at work to bring about the Republic's over-
throw. The most notable of these occurred in August, 1932,
when the Republic was only sixteen months old. This was
the revolt led on August 10, by General Jose Sanjurjo. He
was a typical opportunist, who had blossomed as a liberal
and friend of the new Republic, hoping thereby to gain
advancement that had been denied him under the mon-
archy.
In the first days of that August, I happened to be In the
small seacoast town of Fornells on the Isle of Minorca a
rather isolated fishing port knowing few outside visitors.
My fonddj or inn, I observed, was also offering hospitality
to a group of distinguished Spanish gentlemen from the
mainland. My host confided to me that they were muy
importante generals and politicos, the military men in ci-
vilian attire. They were holding numerous conferences.
When I asked him what they were doing here on this island,
he shrugged his shoulders and replied: "ATo se nada" "I
know nothing." When I mentioned the fact to Spanish
newspaper colleagues a few days later, they agreed that the
circumstance was muy significante. And very significant it
142 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
turned out to be. For here was being hatched out the plot
for the uprising of August 10, in Seville and Madrid.
On that day at Seville, Sanjurjo, the self -proclaimed
great friend of the Republic, issued a pronunciamiento de-
claring a military dictatorship headed by himself. Among a
long list of offenses which he charged to the Republic was
the agrarian reform law and the estatutos which gave limited
autonomy to the Catalan and the Basque regional govern-
ments. This was described by him as the crime of dismem-
bering Spain. Actually the autonomous regions enjoyed no
more governing powers than those of an American city.
But the proclamation was an open bid for support from the
grandees whose latifundias were being required to fit into
the productive economy of Spain, to the hard-shelled mon-
archists who opposed all grants of local governing powers to
the regions, to the army and, by implication, also to the
church in fact to all that world of the elite which through
centuries had been at war against that other Spanish world
which struggled for its right to have profit of life.
While Sanjurjo attempted to take care of the garrisons
and the government offices at Seville his co-conspirators in
Madrid assaulted the Ministry of War and the Post Office
and also tried to take the telephone building. However,
forces loyal to the Republic had been alerted and the at-
tackers were driven off in the capital. Sanjurjo managed to
entrench himself in Seville for a few hours. The labor union
there declared a general strike. The government forces
rallied and Sanjurjo was compelled to flee in disguise. He
was caught the next day while attempting to escape to Por-
tugal. The moral effect of the Republic's domination of
the revolt was great. Up to this time the generals had al-
ways looked upon civilian authority as a pushover whenever
they chose to make pronunciamientos. But now the Repub-
lic had shown it knew how to defend itself against the gen-
erals.
Sanjurjo and his fellow conspirators were brought to
trial before a special tribunal set up by the Constitution to
try acts of treason. Most of the 157 on trial were convicted.
Provisional Government and New Constitution 143
Sanjurjo and several others were sentenced to death. But
the Republican cabinet voted to commute all death sen-
tences to life imprisonment. It wished to continue its newly
established tradition of a Republic come Into being by a
bloodless revolution. The property of the rebels was con-
fiscated, and most of them were ordered transported to Villa
Cisneros, an African colony. The military crowd, the mon-
archists and their sympathizers raised a great outcry of "ex-
cessive severity." But the men whose lives the Republic
spared were soon conspiring against the Republic again.
More than a year later Sanjurjo was liberated by a rightist
government. Proceeding to Portugal he at once began plot-
ting on a much wider scale for the Republic's overthrow.
This time Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were being ap-
proached. Some years later they became part of an active
conspiracy.
The Cortes Constituyentes continued in power for
nearly two years, implementing the constitutional articles
with statutory laws. There were frequent demands from
both sides for the election of a regular Cortes. It was pointed
out that this one had been chosen for the purpose of adopt-
ing a constitution and the necessary complementary laws.
But now the argument was made that the time had come for
it to bow out, since it had fulfilled its mission. The govern-
ment finally called for elections.
The Republic's prestige was high among its neighbors
in Europe. What had in the beginning been looked upon
as another one of those doubtful Spanish experiments was
now seen to be a successful going concern. The Spanish
rightists thought otherwise. They looked upon the call for
new national elections as their great opportunity. In par-
ticular they counted heavily on the votes of the newly en-
franchised women to whom the church began making an
especial appeal. But in the ears of all these hostile forces
rang the words of warning that Prime Minister Azana had
uttered in the Cortes during a debate on a "Law for the De-
fense of the Republic":
"Never, while in my hands, shall authority be weak-
144 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
ened. Never, while in my hands, shall the government of
my country be the object of contempt, scorn and revil-
ing. . . . The Republic belongs to us all. Woe to the man
who dares lift his hands against it!"
Senor Azana tried in truth to live up to the ideal that
the Republic belonged not only to Republicans, but to
monarchists, to the men of the church and, indeed, to all
who were Spaniards. However, the two Spanish worlds had
been at war with each other too long to lay down their arms
overnight.
The Two Spanish Worlds Clash
The national elections for the first regular Cortes to
succeed the Cortes Constituyentes were called for November,
1933. The world of the elite of the church, the aristocracy,
the generals, the senoritos, the landowners and bankers
came face to face with the world that favored "progress and'
modern civilization" which they so roundly condemned.
This second world embraced a large sector of middle-class
Spaniards; of Republican and Socialist parties; the advocates
of enlarged local powers of government; workers and peas-
ants; the common people of Spain. The world of the elite
hoped for victory by sowing discord and splitting the ranks
of the liberals; by mobilizing the women who for the first
time had been granted the ballot; by painting the existing
Republican coalition as in reality the foe of the workers
because of the rigor with which it had put down several
revolutionary strikes and eruptions and because it had not
met their needs quickly enough; by arguing that the Re-
public was destroying the traditional unity of Spain in its
grant of regional rule to the Basques and the Catalans.
This last was a strong argument because even among
workers and peasants outside these regions there were deep-
seated prejudices against regionalism which was often mis-
branded as "separatism." The monarchy had done an ef-
fective job of building up a black myth of Catalan disloyalty
and proneness to treason, so that in many parts of Spain to
Provisional Government and New Constitution 145
name a man a Catalan was much like calling him a communist
less than two decades later. I recall how one night in a
tavern at Sagunto the proprietor was offering me a disserta-
tion on the evil character of Catalans. He did not know that
I had been living in the Catalan capital for a considerable
time. As I left him to retire to my room I said without
thinking, "Bona nit tingui" Catalan for "I wish you good
night." At these words the smile left his face which assumed
an expression that suggested an insult.
These w T ere the factors of appeal to dissatisfaction and
prejudice by which the world of the hard-shell elite hoped
to make Inroads on the world of the liberals and w T in the
elections. Spanish Individualism also stepped in to weaken
the Republican front. The important Socialist party decided
to go it alone. Some other elements, and particularly the
opportunist Radical party led by Alejandro Lerroux, elected
to pose as a party of the center. Under the prevailing elec-
toral system such divisions heavily favored Republican de-
feat. The proportional plan was intended to establish a
right-versus-left-wing system, somewhat analagous to a two-
party system, and at the same time give representation to
even fractional parties according to the proportion of their
votes to the total vote cast. The abstention of the Socialists
and the Radicals from the Left coalition ticket lessened the
liberals' chance of success.
Another factor which counted against the liberals was
the decision of the numerically strong anarcho-syndicalists
to abstain from the polls. Their labor union, the C.N.T.,
was the strongest in Spain, with more than a million mem-
bers. The preponderant majority of these did not share the
anarcho-syndicalist ideology, although they had to belong to
the C.N.T. if they wanted to work in the regions under its
domination, just as in other regions workers had to belong
to the strong Socialist union, the ILG.T. Still the anarcho-
syndicalists controlled 100,000 votes. By their doctrine they
did not formally participate in political campaigns since they
believed In achieving their ends by direct action rather
than by political means. Yet they often did so informally.
146 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
Their refusal to support the liberals now was in retaliation
for the Republican government's severe repressions of direct-
action violence, and the drastic suspensions and censorship
of their press in the preceding two years.
As the electoral campaign began to take form it was
evident that the forces of the Right had amassed consider-
able sums for propaganda, the buying of votes and the cor-
ruption of caciques, or local bosses, in many villages and
towns. The lavish expenditure of money was a new element
in Spanish elections. The church also was no longer content
to be a silent partner as in years past.
The rightist parties used every possible device to paint
the Republic black in the eyes of the common man who
had looked to it for improved conditions. Their arguments
had little effect on the organized workers, aside from direct
actionists. They knew that their wages under the Republic
had already risen 40 to 50 per cent and that they earned
more and lived better than at any time in their history. But
among the peasants the story was different. True, the Re-
public, in the application of its measures of agrarian reform,
had already settled close to 20,000 peasants on parcels of
land carved out of the great latifundias. But there remained
much to be done. Thousands of peasants still lived in pov-
erty. The work had not gone ahead quickly enough, largely
due to obstructionists. Now, these same obstructors posed
as friends of the peasants and tried to persuade them that
the Republic had been false to its promises. At the same
time the landlords, forming the Agrarian party in the Right
coalition, became the financial backers of the reactionaries,
with the intention of dispossessing the peasants who had
already been settled on land, and repossessing that land as
they eventually did.
The opposition also evoked the black picture of certain
repressive measures used against peasants and small towns-
folk in the preceding two years. On one occasion the Civil
Guard had avenged an "insult" by firing on people who had
taken refuge in a church, and shooting down others as they
fled from the church. There were several other instances
Provisional Government and New Constitution 147
of excesses by some of the armed forces. The Republic had
not sanctioned these terrible deeds. The Civil Guard and
the rural police were simply acting as they had been ac-
customed to do under the monarchy. It took more than a
change in the form of government to change their ideas.
The horrible example, which was produced in evidence
at every opportunity, with devastating effect, was the Casas
Viejas affair, in the preceding January, w T hen twenty-five
rebellious Andalusian peasants who had seized land for
themselves were burned alive in their thatched cottages,
or shot dead as they fled from the flames, by the Security
Police. A hot-headed minister had given the order to put
down the uprising at all costs. Security Police trained in
the old Spanish school interpreted this as free leave to act
in the accustomed cruel w r ay. The affair w r as a terrible blow
to the Republican government and almost caused its down-
fall before the elections. In the Cortes, the reactionaries
aired and denounced it for all they were worth, while the
government tried futilely and, as I believed and wrote,
mistakenly to cover it up. But what stood out in these
onslaughts on the government was their appalling hypocrisy.
The anti-Republicans were sanctimoniously accusing the
government of the very things whereof they had been guilty
time and again, and whereof they would be guilty once
more as soon as they came into power.
Another shocking affair that lived in the memory of
workers and peasants occurred at Castilblanco, a poverty-
stricken village in Estramadura, in the spring of 1932. The
poor peasants had decided that the time had come to seize
some of the idle lands lying about them, and called a public
meeting in the town plaza. The Civil Guard, always so
ruthless, forbade it. But the peasants defied them and the
Guards moved in to drive them out of the plaza. In fury,
the peasants turned on the Guards. There was a general
battle in which four Guards were killed. This meant re-
prisals. The peasants refused, even under torture, to give
testimony against any of their fellows; with one accord they
said the whole town was responsible. The Guards, taking
148 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
the law into their hands, as they had done so often before,
said that the whole town must suffer the penalty. They
picked out villagers at random and shot them.
But it was the political campaign systematically organ-
ized by the political church, and on a scale unheard of in
Spain, that turned the electoral tide against the Republican
government. Its organization was the technical handiwork
of the Jesuits whom Spaniards looked upon as the black-
shirts of the church, organizing its militancy as the black-
shirts of Italy organized the militancy of the Fascist regime.
In Spain it went under the name of Accion Catolica.
Accion Catolica, in its political form, masqueraded as
Accion Popular. It presented itself as the friend of the
populace with the mission of redressing its wrongs imposed
upon them by that monster, the Republic.
Accion Popular drew into its ranks all sorts of church
organizations, such as Catholic women, Catholic mothers or
fathers, Catholic youth, and so on. It formed an alliance
with some other political groups and blossomed out as the
Confederation Espanola de Derechos Autonomos, or Span-
ish Confederation of Autonomous Rightists. Its long name
was shortened to its initials, the CEDA, and this CEDA
then spearheaded the coalition of the other rightist parties.
The leaders of the CEDA were two men whom Span-
iards derisively called Spain's principal lay Jesuits, Angel
Herrera and Jose Maria Gil Robles. Angel Herrera was the
editor of the daily newspaper El Debate, known throughout
Spain as the Jesuit organ and presumably Jesuit-owned.
Its standards of truth, and of the fair presentation of news,
were at opposite poles from the standards this author had
been taught to respect during a long journalistic career.
Angel Herrera, after Franco came into power some
years later, completed theological studies, was ordained to
the priesthood and, with unaccustomed speed, was made
Bishop of Malaga. Although the Jesuit order had been dis-
solved, and many Jesuits had left the country, others re-
mained and were working in secret.
Gil Robles was Angel Herrera's protege. He had
Provisional Government and New Constitution 149
studied Fascist methods of strong-arm politics in Italy, the
corporative state system of Austria, and the propaganda
methods of Hitler in Germany. The corporative state was
the system most favored by the Roman Catholic Church.*
Gil Robles became head of the CEDA. He pulled all
the stops in applying the Nazi propaganda techniques. He
posed as the friend of the Republic who wished only to play
a humble and salutary part in curbing its excesses and par-
ticularly its violations of the rights of the church also
those 'Violations" inherent in the Republican doctrine of
separation of church and state. In imitation of Italian Fas-
cist and German Nazi, Gil Robles imposed the leadership
principle on his party membership. He called himself el
fefe, the Chief, and conjured up a Fascist-style salute. His
motto was "Todo para el Jefe""AlL for the Chief." Span-
ish irony came to the fore in making reply. In every part
of Spain you saw chalked up on walls, or lettered on sign-
boards over heaps of garbage and filth, the words, "Todo
para el Jefe" "All for the Chief."
The hierarchy lent its weight to the CEDA in official
pronouncements. Catholics were warned that they could
not in conscience vote for a liberal which meant for an
honest Republican. This had little effect on the men but
it swung many women in support of the church party.
These were the combination of circumstances that ex-
plained why, when the elections of November, 1933, passed
into history, the Republic had been delivered into the hands
of its enemies. The popular majority had actually been on
the side of the Republicans, despite the violence of the op-
position at the polls. But because the Republican coalition
had broken down while the reactionary elements had
strengthened and widened their front and increased it in
depth, they won an overwhelming majority of the 415
members of the Cortes and so took over the government.
* It has also been advocated by the American Catholic hierarchy
in official pronouncements as a substitute for the American democratic
representative system. See joint statement of Roman Catholic hier-
archy, "The Church and Social Order," issued in Washington under
date of February 7, 1940.
15 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
The period that followed became known as <e el bienio
negro" or "the black biennium." Some also called it the
estraperlo period because of the estraperlo scandal that in-
volved the Prime Minister, Alejandro Lerroux, as elsewhere
related. The black biennium was fated to last from Novem-
ber, 1933, to the elections of March, 1936, which restored
the Republican coalition to control of the government.
Thus it lasted two years and four months.
The following extract from an interview which Gil
Robles gave to Diario Espanol of Buenos Aires throws light
on his schemes for destroying the Republic:
For us Democracy is a transitory means of influencing the politics
of the country. We act as posibilitistas, which in the last analysis is the
way everybody acts. When we find ourselves confronted by a reality we
seek to procure two things: to derive the greatest benefit from it and to
transform it to our ideology.
The present Spanish system is very far from constituting, let us
not say an ideal of perfection, but even the possibility of efficacious
action in the country. What I do is to find a supporting base on
whatever offers itself to me in order to transform it and, if necessary,
to destroy it. I do not refer to such an insignificant and transitory
thing as the form of government, but to the problem of the funda-
mental change of the country.
The process of transforming thoughts like these into
deeds is what Spaniards call Jesuitism in action. What it
really meant was this:
The Republic was a reality and Gil Robles accepted
it as "a supporting base/' to be transformed and destroyed,
as the record of his speeches and his proceedings while in
power all too plainly demonstrated. No Republican or
liberal Spaniard ever had the least doubt of that and no
partisan of Gil Robles. Fishermen of Minorca, where many
lobsters are caught, used to tell me that the cuttlefish is the
sea's greatest hunter of lobsters. When the lobster sees one
coming it becomes paralyzed with fear and drops its claws.
The cuttlefish then wraps itself around the lobster and in
a short time there is no meat left in it only the empty
shell. Within sight of all, Gil Robles and his followers
Provisional Government and New Constitution 153.
who had "accepted" the Republic were rapidly leaving it
with no Republican meat in it only the empty shell.
El Debate, on December 15, 1933, published an edito-
rial which was meant to be a message to devout Catholics
and which sponsored "political action of the Right/' defined
as "political action of Catholics as Catholics." This norm,
"political action of Catholics as Catholics/' was thenceforth
to be the dominant note of Accion Popular and its allies.
Even before the editorial had appeared, Gil Robles
was saying at Madrid in the course of an electoral speech
(June 19): "I assure you that the first and sole reason for
the existence of Accion Popular is that it is eminently Cath-
olic and in its whole being it ratifies the declarations of the
bishops and of the papal encyclical." To some it seemed
that the encyclical, which dwelt on the rights of the church,
was intended to strike the keynote of the Spanish electoral
campaign from the viewpoint of the church. It had been
issued that year.
Gil Robles, in addition to his alliance with the church,
entered into an accord with the army. He glorified it re-
peatedly in his public speeches, as for instance at the great
mass meeting at Medina del Campo, June 30, 1935, while
he was in power. He said: "The army is wholly at the
service of Spain; it is not at the service of any party or of
any political action of any man. It is at the service of Spain,
of the nation, of the collectivity. This title is its glory and
it has never dreamed of departing from its course, nor can
any evil-minded person believe that the army is capable of
being traitor to the high destinies which rest in its hands/'
These words are full of equivocal meaning, as was the
interview just quoted. They were recognized as typical ex-
amples of "Jesuitism" in Spain a current term meaning
sly labyrinthine speech and action.
Spain being a land where one was commonly expected
to read between the lines of statements of public men and
of the press, the suspicion grew that the words, "nor can
any evil-minded person ever believe that the army is capable
152 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
of being a traitor to the high destinies which rest in its
hands," were actually intended as a backhanded appeal to
the army to act in a propitious moment precisely as it sub-
sequently did to save the undefined ''high destinies" en-
trusted to it. However that may be, no Spaniard on either
side doubted that this was a direct bid for the army's
favor and support, the more so since while he was at the
War Ministry Gil Robles had curried the good will of the
army by reinstating the generals and other high officers
whom the Republic had dismissed as disloyal, and by pro-
curing for it huge budgetary appropriations.
About this time there was active an organization known
as Union Militar Espanola, which for more than two years
had been fomenting military revolt. Many persons knew
about it. I possessed one of its secret pronunciamientos. It
was a violent exhortation to military men to "save Spain"
from an "international plot" to "pulverize" it and "promote
the ruin of religious sentiment and of the Spanish family,
of capital and labor . . ."
As an example of the type of religious exhortations the
church was injecting into the political struggles was a mani-
festo of the archdiocesan junta of Accion Catolica for the
Archdiocese of Tarragona enjoining upon Catholics their
"duty" of voting "the announced candidacy of order," since
by so doing they would be conforming to the desire of the
Pontiff set forth by Cardinal Goma, Archbishop of Toledo
and Primate of Spain. The manifesto went on to say: "Ab-
stention in these circumstances would be a desertion and
betrayal of the fatherland and a manifest disobedience to
the norms which in the present situation have been outlined
by the Holy See and the Spanish episcopacy. Let us all then
vote as a single man, with a single ticket, for religious free-
dom and the fatherland." Thousands of good Catholics
resented this and similar attempts to tell them how to vote.
There was a flood of such literature, not only in the
elections which produced the black biennium, but in others.
To cite one more example: in the Catalan regional elections
of November, 1932, voters were deluged with literature, of
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 153
which this author retains some specimens, Informing them
that "their consciences did not permit" them to vote for a
liberal candidate.
Such were the factors that had brought about the defeat
of the liberal Republican parties In the elections of Novem-
ber, 1933. And of this kind were the forces that, in the
black biennium that followed, proceeded to destroy all that
had thus far been accomplished by the adolescent Republic.
12 Attempts to Destroy the Republic
from Within
Immediately after the elections of November, 1933,
anti-Republican forces took control of the government,
there to remain for two years and four months the ill-fated
black biennium. By winning the elections they had gained
legal control; what was neither according to the spirit nor
the letter of the Constitution and the law under which they
had taken authority was their efforts aimed at the destruc-
tion of both. The government of the black biennium was
no less than a conspiracy to destroy the Republic under
pretended color of legality,
One of the first moves made by the Right coalition was
to release all the anti-Republican conspirators from the
prisons to which, after fair trial, they had been sentenced.
These sentences had been exceedingly lenient. That peren-
nial demagogue and phony 'liberal" Alejandro Lerroux
headed the government. President Alcala Zamora "Old
Boots" had bowed to the dictates of the rightists and made
him Prime Minister. The prisoners now released included
the officers who had been caught red-handed in the uprising
of August 10, 1932, which had been led by General Sanjurjo,
154 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
Peasants who had been settled on the land were ousted
by the thousands and the former owners restored to the
land, once again to become pasture for bulls or to lie idle.
It was a settled policy of the landlords to keep the peasants
in a chronic state of starvation literally so. The situation
was particularly acute in Estremadura and Andalucia, and
in parts of Castile.
The Socialist party took a strong line of opposition. In
some places it organized its own peasants' cooperatives on a
share-the-profits basis with the landlords. But these measures
failed to counterbalance the wholesale convictions which
such agreements did not affect. The wages of peasants and
workers, which had risen during the preceding liberal pe-
riod, were arbitrarily forced down.
The workers did not take this meekly. The govern-
ment found itself with a succession of revolutionary strikes
on its hands. The anti-Republicans had hardly taken power
when, on December 8, 1933, the anarcho-syndicalists de-
clared a revolutionary strike at Saragossa and throughout
the province of Aragon of which it was the capital. There
was fighting behind street barricades; public buildings were
seized. The towns were declared to be workers' comuni-
dades once again a reversion to the ancient tradition. A
few churches were burned. Sympathy strikes of similar
character were declared in various parts of Spain. The
anarcho-syndicalists, who had no hope of success, were sim-
ply staging another "rehearsal/' their most eleborate yet,
in preparation for what they considered the true revolu-
tionary moment.
President Azana's Own Story of Republic's Setback
While the coalition's efforts to strike down the Repub-
lic "legally," and the violent reactions in various parts of
Spain, were tearing the country apart, the liberal forces
were working desperately to reform their ranks for the
struggle ahead. Their hope was to force new elections a
year or so hence in the conviction that this time the popular
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 155
verdict would be In their favor. They were strengthened In
this view by the exasperation of peasants and workers every-
where.
The leader of the movement to reform the liberal ranks
was Don Manuel Azaria, who had taken a leading part In
the original Republican operations which obliged the King
to step down. By the liberal forces he was now looked upon
as their prophet. In the summer of 1934 Azana, as a mere
private citizen, was recuperating his strength and making
his plans at San Hilary de Sacalm in the Catalan mountains,
on the slopes of Montseny, which dominates the Gerona
plateau. It was there that I decided to visit him. I obtained
an interview for the London Times which was thereafter
much quoted in the European press and was also published
by the Times In New York.
Here in his temporary mountain home was isolation
from the jars and vibrations of the outer political world,
tranquillity amid big trees, deep canyons and the soothing
splash and tinkle of water over the boulder-strewn bed of
a stream. Here also was time for meditation on the successes
and failures of the Republic during the preceding two years.
Don Manuel passed his time strolling amid shady groves,
planting and pruning trees and tending to flowers. The re-
lease of physical energies, he told me, was a wonderful spur
to the release of one's thoughts. Like many another philos-
opher-poet, he loved all forms of plant life.
Azana greeted me In the spacious salon of his hotel, and
after some small talk led the way to the open and sat down
in a favorite wicker chair under some pines. He was bronzed
and looked fit; he spoke first of his life here in the forest
and of the neglected trees to which he gave attention in his
daily walks. Then he launched Into a discussion of Spanish
politics. His words flowed rapidly, like a torrent as he
touched on many subjects.
"What was the cause of last November's defeat of the
Republican coalition and the return to power of the hostile
Right groups?" I wanted to know. This question formed
the central theme of the discourse that followed.
156 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
"The factions of the Right spent money like water," he
replied. "They wished to undo the agrarian legislation and,
above all, to recuperate their vast holdings and keep the
people in servitude. They have again imposed starvation
wages in Andalucfa and Estremadura, undoing the work
of the Republic. And the peasants are hungering. They have
adopted extreme views, and speak of inciting revolution.
That is a great mistake. The Republican cause can only
be advanced by the united political action of all favorable
parties. We must win back the Socialists who went on their
own in the November elections, and we must all go into the
battle together."
"The Republic has been much criticized for undue
harshness in its church legislation/* I suggested. "Do you
think such criticism is valid?"
"The Republic has no animosity toward the church,"
replied Azafia, who had himself once been a theological
student and as a youth had been tutored by friars. "It merely
wishes to live in peace with the church. But the church must
not interfere with the state."
In view of what later happened, it is interesting to note
that even then Azana was exhorting the more exuberant
spirits to avoid violence. It is important to know this in
view of the fact that in the years that ensued, and even today,
the anti-Republican forces in Spain, as well as their apologists
in the United States and elsewhere, continue to harp on the
canard that Azafia was "the brains" of the violent acts that
ensued. There was a prophetic quality in Azana's discourse.
He touched on many subjects that are still a theme of
debate where Spain is concerned. The picture he drew of
the situation as it then stood provides one of the best possible
portrayals of the circumstances that led up to the 1936 elec-
tions which were again to favor the Republicans.
When I interjected to remark, "They say at Madrid
that the Republic is dead," Azafia reflected a moment, and
then began to speak with staccato rapidity, in a familiar and
almost confidential manner.
"No, the Republic is not deadl" The denial was em-
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 157
phatic. "But there have come into power elements which,
incited by the Rights and the monarchists, have set out to
destroy the Republic. They have violated our educational
and agrarian laws, and have piled up a deficit of a thousand
million pesetas 95,000,000. They are attempting to pact
with the Vatican in violation of the Constitution and the
religious laws. They have committed the error of provoking
conflicts with the Catalans and the Basques. They have en-
couraged an offensive against labor on the part of the
patrones [owners] with the object of discrediting the Re-
public. In Andalucia wages have been forced down one-third
since we left power, and the people are suffering from hun-
ger. ^
"All this has favored Socialist agitation and that is
dangerous for two reasons. First, it is causing needless up-
heavals in the countryside, and Spain is not Russia to suc-
cumb to socialism by such tactics. Next, it is likely to cause
disaffection with the Republic, particularly among the
peasants. What is needed is a reunion of Socialist and Re-
publican forces.
"The attempted coalition of the moderate Republicans
signifies nothing they lack tropas [troops or followers].
They have the names of parties and little more. In Spain
it is far too easy to form a party. You need only to put up
your sign, buy a rubber stamp and some stationery.
"But aside from that, a coalition with intermediary
parties which do not represent the revolution is impossible
for us because we must preserve our signification, our au-
thenticity and our authority. Otherwise we are lost. How-
ever, it might not be impossible for us to cooperate with
such parties if they assumed the power and put forward a
program not unacceptable to us. But identify ourselves with
them we cannot/*
I asked about the advisability of forcing a dissolution of
parliament.
"No/* replied Azaiia, "a dissolution of parliament now
would be adventuresome and dangerous because of the
unfavorable conditions. The revolutionary forces are dis-
158 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
united and the people are dispirited, tired, lacking faith in
political action, and beginning to doubt the Republic. It
might be difficult to rally our forces immediately."
The Republicans commonly referred to theirs as a revo-
lutionary movement. This did not mean that they contem-
plated violence quite the contrary. They liked to think
of themselves as men who had brought the first "bloodless
revolution" to Spain. But their movement was revolutionary
in the sense that it involved a revolutionary transformation
of Spain's social and political future. There had been much
talk in the air that the rightists might try to seize power
forcibly with the aid of the army and thus head off elections
by establishing some kind of dictatorship.
"No/' Azana said, "a golpe de estado [rebellion] by the
military would be impossible without the complicity of the
government and I don't think the government would dare
take such a risk."
He dwelt on some of the golpes in past Spanish history,
notably that which had brought Primo de Rivera to power
in 1923. "That," he said, "was brought about by a con-
spiracy of the government itself.
"The pretended golpe of General Sanjurjo on August
10, 1932, was nothing. I take no account of it. They seized
power in Seville for ten hours, and they killed a few men,
but it was quickly over. They might have invaded the Min-
istry of War at Madrid and assassinated me according to
their plan, and as has since been done with Dollfuss in
Austria. But nothing else would have happened." There
was a humorous twinkle in Azana's eye as he said this, as
though the matter of his assassination had little importance.
"Well," I asked, "what is the salida the way out for
the situation you have described?" He plucked at the reeds
of his wicker chair as if this activity helped him to think.
Then, after a pause, he replied.
"At this moment I do not know the salida. There is
nothing to do but to animate the people, to provoke a new
enthusiasm for the Republic and bring about a coalition of
workers, especially the Socialists with the Spanish and the
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 159
Catalan Left Republican parties. The Rights are aiding us
indirectly by their attacks on Republican institutions. The
people will take note of this and rally to the side of the
Republic again. That will be a favorable moment for us."
By the time new elections were called a year later, the people
were in fact once more so rallying.
Azana's mind harked back to the disastrous elections of
November, 1933.
"Those elections/* he said, "were a revival of what we
in Spain call caciquismo local boss rule. Monarchism once
more showed its head and resorted to time-honored tactics.
Millions of pesetas were spent to obtain a victory. Ninety
per cent of the rightist votes came from the women. But that
is why the rightists also have no tropas behind them. The
women go to the polls and then go back to their homes.
They will not take part in political activity or go into the
street for political combat like their men. But nothing like
that will happen again; there will never be such an expendi-
ture of money to win the elections,"
The former Prime Minister resumed his plucking of the
reeds in his wicker chair and his eyes roamed over the
forest-clad mountain rising across the canyon. Was he con-
templating the irony of the fact that the liberalism of the
Left, in granting the vote to women, had largely been re-
sponsible for that Left's undoing, as its situation stood now?
I returned to the question of a reunion of the Socialist and
Republican forces.
"You must understand," he explained, "that there are
two wings of the Socialist party, representing two tendencies.
One wing is led by Largo Gaballero who stands for the ex-
tremist view that the Socialists must make their own revolu-
tion and want no union with the Republicans. The other
wing, led by Indalecio Prieto and Julian Bestairo, represents
a more moderate tendency and is favorable to collaboration.
One of our first problems, therefore, is to win back the
Socialists. The Socialists themselves have no chance of carry-
ing elections because four-fifths of the country declines to
accept socialism. A socialist government is impossible.
160 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
"This suggests another important difficulty the cul-
tural pattern of the masses. By temperament we Spaniards
are not a people of terminos medias moderate measures.
We go to one extreme or the other. A great many people
do not understand arriving at the goal of Republicanism
through the media of a parliamentary government and its
institutions. They become tired of such devices they
demand a short cut. The people are either red or yellow
and such things have no color.
"The task of convincing and uniting the masses is most
difficult because of their diverse stages of culture and their
intense individualities. In Andalucia, for example, there are
a million men entirely without prdctica politica practice
in politics. All they know is that they are hungry and want
bread. We cannot appeal to them by the same reasonable
arguments that we use to appeal to the workman who has
regular wages and who better understands the ways of
politica] action. These million hungry men of Andalucia
will carry tremendous weight where the future of the Re-
public is concerned."
"What would happen," I asked, "if the rightists managed
to entrench themselves firmly and went ahead with their
announced intentions?"
There was more nervous tension now in the plucking
at the strands of his chair.
"There will be a civil war and that would be most
grave"
Obviously Azana knew his countrymen well and fore-
saw the explosive potentialities in a situation which per-
petuated the rightists in power.
"If the rightists were to carry out their intentions of
destroying what the Republic has built, it would be most
serious. The Republic is here to stay. I am not one of those
who would make revolution by going into the street. I
believe in a parliamentary government as the medium
through which to achieve revolution. But the day may come
when we will have no other remedy but to take up the
carbine . . ."
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 161
He paused. Then added: ". . . matando genie killing
human beings."
One eventuality Senor Azana did not foresee that
when the killing of human beings began, the Republic's
enemies would have raised the standard of fascism and have
formed a new coalition with killers sent to Spain by Mus-
solini and Hitler.
October, 1934: Month of Rebellions
In October of 1934, after the anti-Republican forces
had been in power somewhat more than ten months, there
came violent reactions in various pans of Spain. Two of
these had a revolutionary character of the first order. One
was the miners' uprising in Asturias in the north of Spain.
The other was the revolt of the Catalan regionalists who car-
ried along with them the workers and peasants. The Catalan
government, headed by its President, Don Luis Companys,
had declared itself in rebellion against the attempts of the
Madrid government to destroy the regional autonomy they
had won after such dogged persistence.
The Asturian tragic events took the form of a desperate
uprising of Asturian miners bent on redressing their wrongs
the repression of liberties and a return to substandard
labor conditions. The two big labor organizations, the
syndicalists and the Socialists, and some splinter groups had
closed ranks to form a solid front the Frente Unico.
The movement started on October 4 in some of the
mining towns outside the Asturian capital, Oviedo. Police
and military barracks were assaulted with dynamite and
seized. A small-arms factory was captured at La Trubia, with
about 30,000 rifles and machine guns. Next the miners
marched on Oviedo, which they captured on October 9.
Then the army moved in. For the first time the Foreign
Legion, called the tercio, and the Berber tribesmen, the
regulares, were brought over from Africa. Then there
followed all the terrorism of which such forces are capable.
Workers were seized and shot without trial. Many were
*2 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
tortured. The government tried to hush up the shocking
truth. Press correspondents, and particularly foreign news-
men, were prevented from visiting the scene. One distin-
guished Spanish correspondent, Luis de SIrval, was mur-
dered by three army officers for the crime of telling the truth.
Luis de SIrval, a well-known Madrid reporter and cor-
respondent for a newspaper syndicate, went to Oviedo and
wrote an article exposing the army's atrocities. The army
arrested him for insulting its honor. On October 27 three
army officers took him out of his cell to the prison patio
and shot him "to vindicate the honor and good name of the
army." There was such an uproar that even the reactionary
government was obliged to make explanations, after first
having tried to deny that such a thing had occurred. A
Bulgarian officer of the Foreign Legion was induced to offer
himself as a scapegoat, to be tried in a civilian court and
to be virtually absolved by a verdict of "homicide by im-
prudence." The public prosecutor had acted as attorney for
the defense rather than as prosecutor. The court argued that
the victim's action In telling the facts about the military
atrocities constituted an aggravating circumstance. The
officer was sentenced to six months and a day in prison, but
his sentence was considered extinguished by his period of
parole pending the trial.
The Asturian repressions of which de Sirval had given
firsthand reports, and which were later documented in a
Black Paper issued by the Republican coalition, did not
proceed merely from a policy of meeting terrorism with
terrorism, which would have been bad enough. They were
the result of unbridled military sadism and religious fa-
naticism. One of the pretexts used to excuse them was that
they were acts of expiation for the destruction of church
property. Horrible as is the recital of this part of the black
biennium's story, it is necessary to look at some of these acts
in all their nakedness if one is to understand the deep forces
that caused workers to retaliate with horrible vengeance in
the Civil War which was to follow in another two years.
Voluminous sworn testimony has set forth the nature
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 165
of these acts. A common form of torture was ironically
called the "trimotor" The victim's hands were tied behind
his back with cords. A rope was then tied around his hands,
by which he was suspended from a beam and flogged until
he lost consciousness. Sometimes weights would be attached
to his body and he would swing back and forth. These
tortures would be repeated for a series of days.
One victim told of being thrown into a stream when
he lost consciousness, and of then being fished out. When he
had somewhat recovered, the torture was resumed. Many of
the victims emerged from these ordeals with broken arms.
Still another common form of torture was the "Maria Bath,"
which consisted of stripping the victim naked and plunging
him Into a bath of cold water until his body was chilled,
after which he would be taken out and flogged.
The most celebrated case of torture was that of Javier
Bueno, the editor of a workers' newspaper, Avance, and
former chief editor of the Important daily, La Voz, of
Madrid. His flesh was cut with knives and even pierced with
nails. When an Investigating committee of Republican
deputies obtained his story and even a photograph showing
his wounds, the rightist government, unable to deny the
truth of his physical condition, cynically republished the
picture In a booklet and accused Bueno of having Inflicted
the wounds on himself for propaganda purposes. About a
year later I met Bueno and heard his own story and denial,
from him.
When the commission of Republican deputies issued
their detailed report, the anti-Republican government again
countered with consummate cynicism. They invented stories
of atrocities committed by miners, which investigation
showed to be false. Republican deputies, newspapers and
even members of the Radical party who had become fed
up with the foul tactics of their leader, Lerroux, tried
honestly to find out the facts, and had to report there was
no truth in the stories. One of these pictured the convent
of Las Adoratrices as the scene of an orgy of attacks upon
nuns. Its Mother Superior came forward to deny warmly
164 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
that there had been any such outrages. All that happened,
she said, was that the miners had brought some of their
wounded there and the nuns had nursed them. The miners'
uprising had entailed considerable destruction of property,
including attacks on a number of churches. But the record
fails to reveal in the uprising anything like the premeditated
pattern of cruelty inflicted on the miners by the Spanish army
and the Foreign Legionaries and tribesmen from Africa.
An uprising similar to that In Asturias had been
planned at the same time in Madrid. It failed because the
workers lacked arms. The arms on which they had counted
had, by mischance, failed to arrive.
The Catalan Government Revolts
The most serious revolutionary movement outside
Asturias was in Catalonia; it was timed to occur simultane-
ously with that of Asturias. But it ended the same night In
a tragic collapse of the Catalan autonomous government,
with the entire government, including Don Luis Companys,
the President, clapped in military prisons. I was in the thick
of the stirring events of that night and shall never forget
them.
What led to the uprising was this: The rightist govern-
ment, In line with its policy of sabotaging the Republic,
was doing its best to undermine the bitterly won Catalan
autonomy under pretext of acting within the law. It had
reclaimed control of the forces of order the Civil Guard, the
Security Police and the polida seer eta who seemed to be
swarming all over Spain. What was left to the Catalan gov-
ernment were a handful of Mozos de Escuadra, a largely
ornamental Catalan police maintained for the purpose of
perpetuating tradition, and the town police, whose duties
consisted mainly of such secondary chores as directing traffic
and suppressing unnecessary noise. Thus the initial step
in the program of sabotage consisted in crippling the govern-
by depriving it of its policing functions.
Next, an attack was made on the administration of
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 165
justice. The Catalan government had obtained control of
the courts and of the appointment of judges. But it had
had to retain some of the old judges with anti-Catalan
prejudices. The Madrid government now used these old
judges as evident stooges to upset the decrees of the regional
government, suppress freedom of speech and in many other
ways to harass and offend local sentiment. There were vio-
lent reactions, and turbulent scenes in the courtrooms. The
Catalan government declared that it lacked confidence in the
judges who acted this way and ordered their removal. Under
the protection of the Madrid government they refused to
obey.
The job of sabotaging the Catalan courts had been left
in the hands of the 'lay Jesuit" Gil Robles, who by this time
had been shifted from the War Ministry to become Minister
of Justice. Gil Robles came personally to encourage the
anti-Catalan judges. The explosive situation continued
without solution one way or another. But Gil Robles had
managed to manipulate the composition of an Important
Republican tribunal to his liking. This was the Tribunal
of Constitutional Guarantees, which the Republican govern-
ment had set up at Madrid. It was a wisely considered device
to prevent any infringement of the Constitution by the
illegal action of either the central or the regional govern-
ments. But there was a way for a government with a
penchant for lawlessness to get around this difficulty by the
most illegal action of all arbitrarily to dismiss judges and
name others who would rule at its bidding. The new judges
would naturally have to rule on the legality of such an
action, and so rule in their own favor as they did. It would
be much as if some American demagogue, having become
President, had, with the acquiescence of a subservient Con-
gress, suddenly removed the justices of the United States
Supreme Court and named men after his liking. The people
all over Spain were aghast at this temerity of the chief
understudy of Angel Herrera, editor of the Jesuit news-
paper, El Debate. They said it was worthy of the school
wherein he had trained. It was the action of this recon-
166 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure .
stituted court in annulling an important law passed by the
Catalan parliament, on the grounds of unconstitutionality,
that precipitated the Catalan government's rebellion.
A land dispute was the cause o this turbulent sequence
of actions; it was known as the conflict of the rabassaires,
and it stemmed from a peculiar Catalan system of land
tenure known as la rabassa morta, which might be translated
as "the termination of land tenure by death" the death in
question being not of persons but of the vine. The country
of the rabassaires was an extensive winegrowing region, and
the growers held the land under contracts which gave them
possession thereof until the * 'death" of three-fourths of the
vines they had planted.
At this time the government dominated by Gil Robles
although nominally It was under the leadership of the
Radical party which had substituted Ricardo Samper for
Lerroux as Prime Minister had been nullifying the new
agrarian laws and ousting peasants from the lands the
Republic had given them. Under the autonomy statute these
laws did not affect Catalonia, which had its own lawmaking
powers in such regional matters. But the landowners took
advantage of the Madrid government's attitude of sabotage
to drive their own rabassaires off the lands and regain pos-
session of them.
Under the rabassa morta contract this was unlawful
unless the owners could prove that three-fourths of the vines
which the tenants had planted had died. There was a time
in the past when the tenants, with extraordinary care, were
able to prolong the life of their vines for fifty years. But
when a blight required the planting of a new type of vine,
this period was sometimes cut in half. The tenants' all was
in the land; if driven off, they were ruined. In any event
under the long tenures which in the past had been renewed
almost automatically, they were owners of the land in all but
name. The share of the crops which they handed the land-
lords was the equivalent of rentals. In this rich agricultural
country both tenants and landlords had prospered. But the
landlords felt they would be even more prosperous if they
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 167
could take all the profits. The situation had been develop-
ing for several years.
The Catalan liberal government, under the presidency
of Companys, Francesc Macia's successor, passed the ley de
cultivos. What this law did, in a nutshell, was to enable the
tenant to purchase the land after he had held it for a certain
number of years. The purchase price was to be fair, and
arbitration boards were set up to iron out any disputes.
What followed can only be understood by comprehend-
ing the hunger for land, and the sacred character of land,
among the Catalans as well as most other Pyrenean peoples.
It was the same land hunger, and the reverence for land,
that you see reflected in Biblical literature. In fact here was
the story of Naboth's vineyard over again, but on a larger
scale. Though the King offered to pay handsomely for the
vineyard, Naboth would not sell it, for land was more pre-
cious than money. It was the patrimony that must be pre-
served for generations to come. To sell it would be a dis-
grace.
This ivas the same view held by the Catalan land-
owners. And against this view clashed an equal hunger for
land on the part of the tenants- Land in this region was
limited, and if they could not buy it their hopes of ever
being landowners were gone. In fact, one aspect of the
rabassaire system was that, practically, it multiplied the land
area by two in that it settled both landowner and rabassaire
on the same land, the latter on a basis that amounted to
semi-ownership. When the land law was passed and its ap-
plication begun, the situation produced was very much like
the classic collision of an irresistible force with an Immovable
body. The rabassaires tolerated no resistance. The land-
lords refused to be moved. It was at this point that the
Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees stepped in. The
landlords appealed to that body. And the packed court ruled
that the Catalan parliament had no right to pass the ley de
cultivos.
Catalonia was in an uproar. If the court's ruling stood,
it meant that the Catalan autonomy statute itself had been
i68 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
abolished by a stroke of the pen. If the powers of its parlia-
ment could be denied in this, they could be denied in all
else. The Catalan government, which already had been
stripped of other powers, would be a mere empty ruin.
The autonomy powers were an objective toward which
the Catalans had been driving for centuries, and for w r hich
they had fought fierce battles and often shed blood. It was
a great day of triumph when they had at length received
their estatuto from the Republic. They did not mean to let
go of It easily now. A revolutionary situation had been
developing for some time because of the course of the Madrid
government under Gil Robles. Now it came to a head. The
Catalan government defied the Madrid powers by assembling
its parliament and once more presenting the ley de cultivos.
The parliament promptly passed it amid scenes of excitement
and violence, and the Catalan government announced its
intention of treating it as a new law and proceeding to give
it effect. Under the circumstances this was the only alterna-
tive to accepting defeat. There was no appeal left in the
courts of the land. To make a new appeal to a packed court
would be wasted time.
In this situation the strongly Catholic Basques sided
with the Catalans. As staunch Catholics they had originally
aligned themselves with the CEDA. They also had an
autonomy problem, but as yet had not progressed beyond the
point of the Basque provisional government set up after the
declaration of the Republic in 1931. The CEDA had prom-
ised to grant them the statute which the Republic had not
yet had time to pass. But after patiently waiting, and being
put off on one pretext or another, they now clearly saw that
the CEDA really intended to defraud them. In disgust they
turned from the Right and joined hands with the Catalans.
With the Basques, as with the Catalans, self-rule was para-
mount. They held municipal elections in defiance of the
Madrid government. The Civil Guard was sent to stop the
elections; this was a new kind of situation for these forces,
which had been accustomed to put down peasants and work-
ers but hardly respectable and prosperous upper-middle-class
Attempts to Destroy the Republic jrom Within 169
folk strongly attached to the church. After a halfhearted
show of force, and the firing of some shots, they retired. The
monarchist paper in Madrid, A. B.C., commented that the
Basques were worse than the Communists.
Not only the Catholic Basques had deserted the Right
Some conservatives and a group of Lerroux's Radical party
also joined the Republican side, in disgust with their leader.
All these forces presented an ultimatum to President Alcala
Zamora: what they termed "'Jesuitism" in the form of Gil
Robles and the CEDA must be booted out of the cabinet.
Notwithstanding, the President directed the new Prime
Minister once more Lerroux to place three members of
the CEDA in the cabinet. The Republicans considered this
to be betrayal by the man w r hom they had elevated to the
Presidency. They never forgot it. Had Alcala Zamora
heeded the Republican counsel to leave "Jesuitism" out of
the government, the sad events that immediately followed,
and perhaps even the Civil War itself, might have been
averted. I have already mentioned the first of these events
the Asturias revolt and the abortive attempt in Madrid. The
Catalan declaration of war on the Republic's saboteurs at
Madrid followed.
After the President's action, tense days followed in all
Catalonia. Rebellion was talked of openly. Citizens' semi-
secret militias were everywhere organized. The signal for
the rising was to be given by a series of ticks over the tw r o
Catalan radio stations: according to the number of ticks, the
Catalan "minutemen" would know where to assemble and
what to do.
The stage for the uprising was set for Saturday, October
4, a day now memorable in Catalan lore. The Catalan
separatists had already assembled their militia in Barcelona.
A sector of workers grouped under the name of Alianza
Obrera, or the Workers* Alliance, made common cause with
the government.
The Alianza Obrera had set up headquarters in a build-
ing not far from the Generalitat palace. One of the rebels
asked me if I did not want to see it; I accepted. The
170 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
Interior was a veritable arsenal: machine guns, stacks of
rifles, hand grenades; parapets of sandbags; grim-visaged
minutemen standing about. Though It looked formidable I
secretly felt they would have little chance against the army's
artillery.
Crowds were surging about. Around seven o'clock in
the Evening it was evident that the Irrevocable moment was
near; I started toward home, for I was thinking of getting
my story to London. If I stayed I might not be able to get
back: and I knew that communications with the outside
would be cut soon after the uprising got under way.
I had hardly reached my house when the Catalan Dec-
laration of Independence came over the radio. President
Companys declared the independence of the Catalan State
within the Federal Republic. It was not separation from
Spain but freedom from interference in regional affairs. The
army had already prepared to act. The Catalan Declaration
of Independence was still being read when the army began
to move on the Generalitat palace and the City Hall on the
opposite side of the square. It moved also against the head-
quarters of the Catalan separatist "Estat Catala" on the
lower part of the Ramblas. I heard the firing of musketry
and of artillery. I had speedily written my story and I
picked up the telephone to call the London Times office in
Paris. The Times had no Sunday paper but the facts would
be wanted for Monday. As I foresaw, I could not have gotten
a story out the following day. By one of those quirks that
sometimes happen, the B.B.C. office did manage to call me
on Sunday but not the Times. The censors had evidently
mistaken the B.B.C. call for a personal and privileged one,
So I was able to give them a picture of what was happening
in Barcelona, and deny the Madrid government's report that
"all was absolute tranquillity/*
There was a bedlam of cannon fire, musketry and
grenade explosions all through the night. The cannon fire
was from the direction of the government buildings. The
musketry reports, much o it volley fire, was general all over
the city, even the upper part of the town where I lived. It
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 171
would be folly to venture out this night in the darkness.
Sometime after midnight I knew, by underground sources,
that the rebellion had failed and that the Catalan govern-
ment had been taken prisoner.
Early Sunday morning I went down to take stock of the
situation. There was still firing In all parts o the city, from
housetops and from mysterious places. You could never tell
which side was doing the firing. Holding up a handkerchief
to Indicate non-belligerency I walked through the city. As
I reached the broad Raniblas there was a sudden burst of
machine-gun fire. A few persons started to run. "No carrel
No corre!" shouted the others. To run was the worst thing
you could do In a situation like this.
An army car turned into the Rambles. It was bursting
with officers, each with a pointed rifle. Some officers clung
to the sides of the car. They looked about for someone or
something to fire at, for someone to start running or to utter
a taunt. The people wisely seemed not to notice the car.
They just walked on tranquilly. None gathered in groups
or even halted.
Turning Into the Calle FIvaller I walked to the Plaga
de la Republica where the Generalitat palace and the City
Hall stood facing each other. The square was a wreck so
were the buildings. Great gaps had been torn in the classic
facades of the beautiful Gothic palace and the Italian-style
City Hall. Artillery was planted In the square guarded by
common soliders and perhaps an officer or two. I entered the
palace no one stopped me. Walls and pillars were shat-
tered; wreckage and blood scattered about. The entire gov-
ernment. Including President Companys, had been hauled off
to prison. Secretarial and other employees of the government
were herded in one of the patios.
They were all known to me and from them I heard the
story of the fearful events of that night. When all was lost
the government decided to hang out the white flag and to ask
for honorable, if unconditional, leave to surrender. When
I again walked out into the square, Moroccan troops were
moving in.
172 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
Back on the Ratnblas I walked over to the headquarters
of the separatist Estat Catala. The military assault upon It
had been pitiless. No mercy was shown, no surrender al-
lowed. The defenders were almost all wounded or killed.
I knew the separatist leader and had had frequent conversa-.
tions with him. Now, I was told, his body lay at the general
morgue. Later In the day I went there. There, among
others, he lay on a slab, his broad hairy breast gashed and
torn as with flying pieces of shrapnel. It was a sad sight.
This In brief Is the story of the terrible night that
spelled the doom of the Catalan government. The form
of the Catalan government remained. But army officers took
over. There was no more meeting of parliament, no more
making of Catalan laws. All through the week there was still
rifle and machine-gun fire in various parts of the city; it
seemed rather pointless; doubtless it was intended as a note
of defiance; as a sign that though the Catalan government
was in bondage the spirit of independence still lived.
Corporative State and Fascism
One effect of the risings in Asturlas and Catalonia, and
of the spirit of angry rebellion that was sweeping over Spain
from one end to the other, was to inspire fear in the rightists.
They began to see they had gone too far. Gil Robles' pro-
gram was not working out smoothly.
New national elections would have to be called within
the next eighteen months, and Gil Robles banked heavily
on riding to power on the crest of the verdict. The populace
was to be defrauded of its just aspirations but with an ap-
pearance of legality. The next step of his program was to
be the corporative state which, in these times, was favored
by the Vatican as the one most suitable for giving the people
an illusion of power without risking the heresy of liberalism.
Fascist Italy had a form of corporative state, and likewise
neighboring Portugal. But to Gil Robles it seemed that the
ideal corporative state was the one which Dollfuss had estab-
lished in Austria by using artillery on the Socialists. Gil
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 173
Robles had been there, had studied it and had become
persuaded that it provided the model for Spain. He piously
hoped that he would not have to impose it with the help of
artillery, as Dollfuss had done.
In one of his speeches he said: "We must advance to-
ward a new state. What does it matter if blood has to be
shed? We need a total solution and this end we pursue,
We will not waste time with outdated forms. Democracy
for us is not an end but merely the means by which to reach
our new state objective. Either the Cortes must submit at
the right moment, or we will make it disappear/' The
speech was reported in the Jesuit organ, El Debate,
At this time the fascist movement, which was later to
appear as the Falange, was already sprouting under the
leadership of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the
monarchist dictator. The Falangists had their own ideas
about the future of Spain, which were not those of Gil
Robles. They were already hurling accusations at him, such
as that "he has felt obliged to eliminate from his side every
authentic national and fascist element. His course is set by
the Vatican policy of traditional Jesuitism; he and his kind
are bastard souls without vital force*"
The Fruits of Rebellion
Wholesale arrests and imprisonments followed the revo-
lutionary events of October, President Companys of the
Catalan Generalitat and his entire cabinet had been placed
under military arrest on the very night of the uprising.
Within a matter of days they were tried and sentenced to
prison. Most of them were transported to the far ends of
Spain to the more desolate part of Andalucia. There was
one functionary of the Catalan government against whom
the army in particular vented its fury Captain Perez Ferras.
He was an army officer who had been loaned to the Catalan
government by the Republic to head and coordinate its
various policing authorities. He was imprisoned in Mont-
juich prison atop the small mountain of the same name at
174 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
the outskirts of the city overlooking the sea a place of
black and infamous memories in the history of this region.
There, one afternoon, I attended his trial by a military court.
It all seemed very fair and correct. The sentence was:
guilty of rebellion, life imprisonment a light sentence
under the circumstances. It had undoubtedly been dictated
beforehand by political considerations. But most of the
officers who were not of the court were furious. They were
thirsting for the blood of Ferras. In the courtyard of the
prison after the trial I heard them bitterly complaining
declaring that they would not allow such a sentence to stand,
that Perez Ferras must die. There was real danger that a
group of officers would take the law in their own hands as
they had done in the case of Luis de Sirval that Ferras
would be lynched in the courtyard of Montjuich. There was
great relief throughout Barcelona when it learned that in
the night Perez Ferras had been taken to another part of
Spain for his own safety. There were times in the past when
men had been spirited away from Montjuich to be executed
elsewhere. But a sixth sense, very marked among Spaniards,
told them that this time no one would dare to do this.
Among those arrested was Don Manuel Azana. In the
autumn he had spent some weeks in Barcelona which had
become a kind of capital for the Republican groups' shadow
government. At one cafe flanking the city's central plaza
he held nightly tertulias. Here, as in the interview he had
given me at San Hilary de Sacalm, he counseled against
violent action. The Catalan authorities were disposed to
heed his warning until the rightists annulled their ley de
cultivos. After that they could not be restrained.
The rightist government now accused Azana of com-
plicity in the uprisings although it knew very well he had
tried to restrain the more turbulent spirits. It had had
Azana under continual surveillance and knew whom he saw
and what he was saying. Even when I saw him in his moun-
tain retreat two secret police were assigned to him, ostensibly
"as a courtesy and protection/' in view of his exalted position
in the previous government. At the time of the Catalan
Attempts to Destroy the Republic from Within 175
revolt he was still In Barcelona, living quietly in the Hotel
Colon. Now, after some days, he was arrested in his hotel
and placed aboard a destroyer moored in the harbor. He
.had the run of the ship. Life for him was as pleasant as it
could be for anyone under the circumstances. The govern-
ment dared not treat him harshly, for it knew that to do so
would be the worst kind of political blunder. The strategy
of the anti-Republican forces now was to tread as softly as
possible in view of the fact that, as they knew, new national
elections could not be far distant and their big task was to
win over the voters.
The object of the rightists In arresting Azana w T as to
keep him Isolated to prevent his further political activity.
What it actually did was to concentrate attention on him and
to strengthen his position as the Republicans' leader. Occa-
sionally he would be allowed a visitor. After every such
interview the Republican press reported in detail what he
had said. The effect was more telling than If he had made
a political speech. Occasionally some follower would manage
to stroll out on a dock or a pier and exchange greetings with
Azana across the stretch of water. They usually found him
In a bantering mood and making wisecracks about his pre-
dicament.
In this acrimonious atmosphere Alcala Zamora dissolved
the Cortes late in 1935 and called for elections the following
February. In the ensuing campaign the anti-Republicans
tried to gloss over the events of the past. The Republicans
refused to allow anyone to forget them.
The President's action in calling for elections at that
time angered Gil Robles. He and his followers had hoped
to drag out the life of the Cortes until he could "transform"
the Constitution so that It would be dead in all but name.
He had also hoped to oust Don Niclto AlcaM Zamora and
replace him with a President more to his liking. The Presi-
dent had blocked his plans for becoming Prime Minister.
Alcala Zamora was between the devil and the sea. Besides
being on the blacklist of the Catholic party though himself
a staunch Catholic the Indian sign had been put on him
176 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
by the Republicans because he had allowed the CEDA a
place in the cabinet. With the election date set, the task
of organizing both the rightist and the Republican coalitions
proceeded with vigor.
The question which the voters would have to answer
was the same as the problem that confronts the aficionado
when he buys his ticket for the bullfight: "Sol o sombra"
"Sun or shade." "Spain is like that sol o sombra^' Sefior
Azafia had told me. "It is always sun or shade black or
white."
13 The Republican Forces Ride
to Victory Again
Azana remained sequestered on his destroyer while the
plans for the election went forward although not for long.
He had already accomplished his task of forging the liberal
front which called itself "The Republican and Workers'
Coalition." Such titles had powerful propaganda appeal.
A moderate "Center" party had been set up under the
leadership of Sefior Manuel Portela Valladares, and Portela
himself was made Prime Minister in the hope that a "care-
taker government" under his direction would insure fair
elections. I came to know Portela quite well and felt sure
that, although he was a conservative, his heart lay in assuring
the welfare of Spain. He was a liberal monarchist; he well
understood and was wary of the Jesuitism which colored all
the thrusts that had been aimed at destroying the Republic.
He was a high-ranking Mason and as such considered a
heretic.
Portela also had mild political ambitions. He hoped to-
elect enough deputies to hold a minority balance of power
The Republican Forces Ride to Victory Again 177
between the two coalitions. There is little doubt that in a
crisis he would have swung his support to the liberal side.
Yet everyone understood that the real issue was whether the
new government would sit in the sun or the shade. About
this time the Barcelona chief of police, a rightist appointee,
had arrested the Reuters correspondent, a man named Wil-
liams, because of a cable he had sent to his agency. All
cables came under government scrutiny, but if you tele-
phoned your news, as I did, government officials never knew
what was sent. As president of the correspondents' associa-
tion I immediately protested the arrest to the Prime Minister
who ordered Williams's release without ceremony.
The Republican coalition included the powerful So-
cialist party as well as the Catalan Esquerra, or Left Re-
publican party, which had never lost its vitality, even during
the black biennium. It was in fact the sheet anchor of the
Republican movement, But the coalition did not include
the anarcho-syndicalists who by their principles were "apo-
litico" that is, apart from political battles. For the first
time the front contained some fragmentary Communist
groups in a few scattered provinces.
Much has been made of the fact that sixteen "Com-
munists" w T ere elected to the Cortes on this ticket. But these
generally represented independent fragments having no
relation to Moscow. Azaiia, as he told me, stood firmly
against any pacting with the official Communist party, small
as it w r as, with strings tied to the Kremlin. The "Com-
munists" were from these independent fragments and a
few Trotskistas who adhered to the teachings of Trotsky as
against Lenin, and who were anathema to Moscow. The
coalition included these fragments because it felt it could
not afford to throw away a single favorable vote. Under the
proportional electoral system, whereunder an entire ticket
could be elected irrespective of the strength of a particular
candidate, the Communists would be swept in with the
Republicans wherever the ticket obtained the majority.
None of the fragments was strong enough to elect a single
178 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
deputy by itself. Up to this time no Communist deputy had
ever sat in the Cortes, under either the monarchy or the
Republic.
The CEDA, led by Gil Robles, went into the fray in
alliance with monarchist partites of various hues. But the
parties of the "Anti-Revolutionary Front" were united
only for the purpose of gathering the votes. Its components
were expected to go their various ways once they had elected
their deputies. Gil Robles himself counted on victory and
expected to hold the center of the stage, oust the President
and dispose of the Constitution as his Jesuit advisers saw fit.
He had announced no program. In fact only a few days
before the election he had told an audience: "It is not neces-
sary that we state our program. . . . What is necessary is
that we put it into effect once we take power." But all Spain
knew his plans and the inspiration thereof.
Everyone knew that the party of "traditional Jesuitism,"
as the Republicans called it, proposed to give Spain another
brand of constitution; to restore the church to the privileged
position it held under the monarchy; to "crush the forces of
revolution," as the opposition parties were called, and of
course to dispose of Alcala Zamora. It also proposed to
denationalize church property, place education in the hands
of the church; restore the army to all its old privileges; undo
what remained of Republican land reform; abolish all re-
gional autonomy.
The Republican and Workers' Alliance offered a posi-
tive program which included: An ample amnesty; a return
to the spirit and letter of the Constitution; the reorganiza-
tion of the administration of justice; a more rigid discipline
for civil servants; repression of usury; the curbing of rental
abuses; the intensification of agricultural credit; stimulation
of commerce, particularly export; a more intensive land
colonization; a general plan of public works; banking and
budget reform; enforcement of the existing Republican
social legislation; accelerated school construction; the total
restoration of the suspended Catalan autonomy statute; the
The Republican Forces Ride to Victory Again 179
creation of trade schools, and, finally, "the defense of the
principles of the League of Nations."
(What an ironic commentary it is on this trust of the
Republican forces of Spain in the League that a year or so
later the League of Nations refused to defend the principles
of popular government in Spain in the face of Fascist aggres-
sion from without.)
However, the Socialists did not conform to some of the
too moderately "bourgeois** provisions; they had taken the
line that the time had come to depart from the pathway of
"progressive socialism" in favor of something more radical.
On the other hand the Republicans made reservations with
respect to certain provisions interpreted by the Socialists in
a rather large sense, such as the nationalization of land. The
Republicans wanted none of that. Obviously, therefore, the
Republicans, once in power, would have to face a Socialist
opposition.
All the Catholic factions went into the battle in full
war regalia for the defeat of the Republican program.
Accion Catolica issued strongly worded manifestoes inform-
ing Catholics of their duty to vote against "the forces of
revolution," and stating that their failure to do so would be
a "betrayal" of the church. New Catholic organizations
sprang up, such as the "DIG," from the words "Defensa de
los Interesos Catolicos" One of the interests which it em-
phasized was the restoration of schools to the Jesuits.
Azafia, in pledging the coalition to restore to Catalonia
the plenitude of its autonomy statute, made one condition,
namely, that the Catalan Esquerra have done with sepa-
ratism. The Catalans accepted this and formed the Catalan
Popular Front, pledged to support the coalition in the
Cortes. At the head of the ticket was Don Luis Companys,
the deposed Catalan President, then in prison; on the same
ticket were five imprisoned Catalan cabinet ministers. It was
of course well understood that the prison doors would open
for them and those who suffered with them the moment the
Republican forces took power.
i8o Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
Great pressure was brought by rightist employers to
swing the votes of workers. Grand senoras went to the polls
with their servants and watched to see that they did the right
thing. Merchants, bankers and all classes of top-echelon
businessmen let their employees know plainly that they
courted reprisals if they voted for the Left parties. Of course
there were many with strong union protection who could
afford to laugh at threats of this kind. But there were many
who couldn't.
One striking aspect of the campaign was a battle of
billboards. It went far beyond anything seen in previous
campaigns. To look at the billboards and walls and windows,
one would think that at least two of the biggest shows on
earth were coming to town at the same time and were en-
gaged in an all-out circus war to bring in the customers. It
was really the biggest show on earth in the way of an elec-
toral campaign I ever have seen. Vivid posters flaunting in-
vective, caricatures, cartoons, praises and execrations covered
every inch of every spare wall. The artistic talent that
could always be impressed into service in Spain for popular
appeals via the billboards, even during the Civil War, was
a constant source of amazement to me.
Here was the iron heel of the rightist Catalan Lliga
crushing the Generalitat palace, symbol of Catalan liberties.
Here was a top-hatted tycoon, symbol of "the rightists,"
pushing the weeping mother of liberty off the edge of a cliff.
And again a prophetic leftist poster devoted itself to a
graphic picture of warfare exploding; above the picture in
large letters was printed "Rightism Is Fascism Fascism Is
War/' and below it the subtitle: "Woman, think of your
children!"
In eastern Spain, February 17 dawned bright and balmy;
in the air were the first whisperings of spring. In Barcelona
the population had come out early to register its will. The
convents, the monasteries, the church rectories must have
sent out their squads and battalions of monks, priests and
nuns at the first breath of dawn. As I walked about the
polling places these formed long queues at the head of the
The Republican Forces Ride to Victory Again 181
lines. The polling places were In improvised quarters much
as in an American city. They were in the fullest sense pub-
lic. Anyone could come in to watch the proceedings and re-
main as long as he wished the rooms were usually quite
large. By the system of voting in vogue, each coalition or
separate party printed its own ballots which saved the state
considerable money. The rest of the procedure was as has
been previously described, and through the glass "urn" every-
one could see how anyone voted. In some places a monk or a
priest would be an election board member.
I went into some of the workers* districts like the Para-
lelo and Sans; and thereafter visited some of the towns, like
Mataro and Granollers. Everywhere the picture was much
the same. I have never seen a more orderly election. In
Spain the powers that be have never found it easy to ma-
nipulate the elections in the large cities, where the proceed-
ings are closely observed by a public which, moreover, is
ready to fight if it notices any skulduggery. Chicanery comes
in the outlying villages and towns the places under the
domination of the caciques, or local bosses.
In the aftermath of this election wholesale corruptions
and irregularities on the part of the rightists were revealed
in such provinces as Cuenca, Granada and Orense. In these
and some other places, as was later proved in the Cortes,
the caciques and rightist politicos used the Civil Guard and
other armed forces to turn voters away from the polls, after
which the returns were falsified at will. Americans of course
know that such practices are not peculiar to Spain.
In Barcelona I covered the returns for all of Catalonia.
There was a central office where a large and capable staff
received the reports from all voting districts. It was all
done quite efficiently. I have never seen it done better at
home.
Despite the corruption in some of the provinces, the
forces of the black biennium were snowed under. The
people of Spain had emerged from their slough of indif-
ference and emphatically registered their will. The verdict
was that the Republic must go on. It was an expression of
a8ss Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
confidence which amazed and stunned the CEDA and those
who trotted along with it. All the exhortations of the hi-
erarchy to the voters, all the emptying of convents and
monasteries, went for naught.
Out of 475 seats in the Cortes, the Popular Front had
gained 275, the Right coalition 144. Senor Portela's Center
party, together with some scattering of Lerroux Radicals,
had 56.
Portela Tells How Franco Tried to Seize Power
The Prime Minister, Senor Portela Valladares, had
done a good job of trying to give the country honest elec-
tions. He had done such a good job, in fact, that he in-
curred the hatred of the rightists although they were yet
willing to use him for their purpose if they could.
After the Civil War broke out, Portela became the
object of a great deal of blackguarding by the partisans of
Franco because he stood by the Republican government.
One of the canards about him, repeated often, was that,
following the commencement of hostilities, he had offered
his support to Franco but that this had been refused. Then,
as the story went, he turned in frustration toward the Re-
public. The evidence is conclusive that this was not true.
Portela was a wealthy landowner and capitalist, a Gali-
cian, who made his home in Barcelona in one of the palatial
residences along the Paseo de Gracia. The fact that he was
an important Mason did not prevent the Mason-hating Gil
Robles from trying to do business with him when the elec-
tions were over.
From Senor Portela I obtained the inside story of
how Gil Robles and the army tried to seize power right
after the elections just held. After I wrote the facts at the
time I asked him to sign my report, and his signature on
my notes lies before me as this is written. It is of particu-
lar interest that this statement implicates Gil Robles, since
attempts have been made to picture him as standing apart
from the plot that now was nearing a head.
The Republican Forces Ride to Victory Again 185
What really happened, as Seiior Portela told it to me,
was as follows:
At four o'clock In the morning of the day that followed the elec-
tions, that Is on Monday, there came to my house a certain Josep
Pla who was the Madrid correspondent of La Veu de Catalunya at
Barcelona. [This was the organ of the Catalan rightist party, the
Lliga Regionalista, headed by the Catalan millionaire Francesc Cambo,
which had cast its lot with the Right coalition.]
Pla told me I was wanted at the Ministerio de Gobemacion
which, as you know, was charged with the maintenance of order. On
my arrival I found Gil Robles waiting for me. He said:
"The Popular Front has won the elections. We cannot let it take
office. I have come to ask you to assume the dictatorship. You will
have our support. All I ask is that you associate me with you. Make
me a minister, or your secretary or a stenographer, or whatever you
like. But it is necessary that I be close to you.'*
I told him that this could not be, but that the will of the people
must prevail.
At six o'clock the same evening, February 18, I was visited by
General Franco in my office. He said, "You must accept the dictator-
ship." Once more I refused.
Before Franco's visit a decree for the proclamation of a state of
war had been proposed and accepted by the Council of Ministers to
be kept in readiness in case disorders followed the elections. Presi-
dent AlcaM Zamora had signed it and returned it to ine with the
observation that I might also sign and promulgate it if this should
be necessary.
In view of the plot which I now saw unfolding I decided not to
sign it, for I saw it would merely hand the power over to the army
and so further the conspiracy.
This statement would seem to clear President Alcald
Zamora of charges made against him that he himself had
instigated the preparation of the state-of-war decree because
of an understanding with the conspirators.
I asked Sefior Portela: "Do you think Alcala Zamora
had any share in the plot?"
He replied: "I do not say so because I have no proof
whatever that he had." Then he continued:
Seeing the alarming state of affairs, I decided that the only thing
for me to do was to resign and at once hand over the power to
the Popular Front government. As the situation stood there were
some who contended that I was obliged to remain in office until
184 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
the runoff elections could be held In districts where candidates had
not obtained the required majorities. But I refused to follow this
course.
I was, first of all, a Spaniard, and my duty was to see that the
interests of Spain were safeguarded. I felt they could best be served
now by my immediate resignation and my delivering the power into
the hands of the newly elected leaders of the Left, who could then
carry on in accordance with the popular will.
On February 19, two days after the elections, I prepared to resign.
At noon of that day Franco visited me a second time, saying, "You
must not resign." He urged what he considered strong reasons for
my remaining In office, but I was immovable. Franco was a man who
would stand no opposition. He had a very strong will. I have never
seen anything like it. He would strike his fist on the table and con-
sider that, just by doing so, anything was done that he wanted to be.
Immediately after Franco's visit I resigned, and the government
presided over by Don Manuel Azafia as Prime Minister was formed
in two hours.
The rightists, frustrated by Portela's refusal to betray
the Republic, embarked on a policy of making life impos-
sible for it. The new government tried to smooth out dif-
ferences. It gave the rightists representation in the councils
although, of course, not in the cabinet. It named a mod-
erate former centrist as President of the Cortes in the person
of Martinez Barrio. He was scrupulous in respecting the
rights of the opposition. All went for naught.
The army assumed an openly contemptuous and hostile
attitude toward the government. Attacks were made on the
lives of Republican leaders, deputies and ministers, and
these sometimes succeeded. A judge was shot dead for hav-
ing sentenced a fascist gunman to prison. Roving terrorists
shot up towns and cafes and terrorized the streets of Madrid.
Attempts were made to bomb certain military officers who
sided with the government. There was a continuous series
of such outrages. Often there were violent reactions. This
was just what the rightists wanted. The reactions, and their
own terrorism, enabled them to point to the Republic and
say: "You see the Republicans are incapable of govern-
ing."*
* See Claude Bowers, My Mission to Spain, for excellent accounts
of what happened during this period.
The Republican Forces Ride to Victory Again 185
The fact of the military conspiracy was an open secret.
The government followed a policy of appeasing the generals
in the hope of quieting them. It did not take the punitive
measures against such generals as Franco, Manuel Coded
and Emilio Mola that circumstances required. It gave
Franco a command in the Canaries and Coded a post at
Palma, on the Island of Majorca. What it really accom-
plished was to assign these men to places where they could
step up their conspiracies away from watchful eyes. They
worked in collaboration with General Sanjurjo who, since
his departure after his attempted golpe of August, 1932,
was living in Lisbon, and who was slated to be the leader
of the new uprising. His death in an airplane crash after
he had left Lisbon for that purpose was the chance circum-
stance that made Franco the caudillo or leader. Was it acci-
dent or sabotage? The question remains.
The conspirators needed only an incident an overt
act to serve as an excuse for the uprising. This was provided
on July 12 by the assassination of Calvo Sotelo. This crime
has been so much debated and so much misrepresented,
and, by the Franco apologists, Sotelo has been so much
transformed into a mythical hero and victim, that it may
be useful to tell who Calvo Sotelo was and to place his
lamentable assassination in proper perspective. The first
thing that stands out is that Sotelo was far from having clean
hands. They were very dirty indeed. He was implicated
up to the hilt in the disorders to which reference has just
been made.
Calvo Sotelo was a middle-aged and well-set-up man; a
lawyer, a former finance minister in the cabinet of Primo
de Rivera, a staunch monarchist and one of the church's
leading spokesmen. As one Spanish correspondent put it
at the time, he "played all the fascist tricks" as, in this
period, he participated in debate in the Cortes. His associa-
tion with the elements that were now engaged in a delib-
erate campaign of terrorism was open to the view of all.
His death, perpetrated by a group of the Guaridias de
Seguridad shock police, was the culmination of a series of
i86 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
violent acts, such as those previously described of which
Sotelo was at least a complaisant accomplice.
The insensate act of the Guardias de Seguridad was in
retaliation for the assassination of one of their own com-
rades under circumstances particularly heartless. On a Sun-
day night, Lieutenant Jos del Castillo of the shock police,
only three weeks married, left his home. Just before the
wedding his fiancee received a mysterious message which
asked: "Why marry a man who will soon be a corpse?"
As Castillo left his house that night, men lying in wait shot
him dead and disappeared. When his comrades received
the news, they assembled in the presence of the body and
there took a solemn oath that his death would be avenged.
Several went to Sotelo's house to tell him he was wanted at
police headquarters. His telephone wires had been cut so
that he could not confirm the summons. He went along.
The shock police invited him to enter a lorry. They
then hastened away. This was the last seen of him until his
body, shot through the head, was delivered to the porter of
a Madrid cemetery.
What had led the shock police straight to Sotelo's
house? Only they could tell and, at least for the record,
they have not done so. But his close connection with the
terrorist campaign could hardly be doubted. And the shock
police were convinced of his complicity.
The assassination was followed by a violent uproar on
the part of fascists, monarchists and their allies for by now
the Fascist party, forerunner of the Spanish Falange, had
become a reality. At Sotelo's graveside the monarchists took
a solemn oath that his death should be avenged. Two days
later, at a meeting of the Permanent Commission of the
Cortes, in which Sotelo's group and other rightists had been
given representation, there were unbridled speeches by the
anti-Republicans, one of the most violent being made by
Gil Robles.
Gil Robles warned the Republican members who were
present that "responsibility" would overtake "the highest"
members of the government, "and will fall upon, the parties
Prelude to Chaos 187
which support you in the Popular Front coalition, and will
strike the whole parliamentary system, and will spatter the
very regime with mud, with misery and with blood/'
Four days after this speech was pronounced, the gar-
risons of Spanish Morocco under Franco rebelled. The
next day, July 18, saw the first of the series of uprising on
the peninsula.
The terrorist campaign during the period that led up to
the outbreak of war was an exceedingly one-sided proposi-
tion. All sorts of rumors were spread about revolutionary
movements of peasants and workers in various parts of
Spain. Every time an attempt was made to investigate these
reports personally they were found to be false. Claude
Bowers, then the United States ambassador to Spain, him-
self went to the scenes of supposed disorders which premedi-
tated rumors had set afloat, and failed to find even one in-
stance in which they were true. What is astonishing is that
in this period the popular elements, often given to violence,
were unusually restrained. The Republican forces were in
a position much like that of a drowning man whose enemies
were trying to push him under water while he desperately
struggled to save himself. It is strongly recommended that
those who would like to consult factual and firsthand reports
of what occurred between the elections of February 17 and
the outbreak of civil war, exactly five months later, read
Claude Bowers' book, My Mission to Spain.
14 Prelude to Chaos
The collapse of law is one of the most devastating
spectacles it is possible to witness in a society of civilized
men. European history since the days of the Romans does
not seem to have provided such a spectacle more than once.
That once was the period of the military rebellion that be-
1 88 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
gan In the remote parts of Spain and some of Its islands
on Friday, July 17, 1936, and that reached its full fury in
Spain proper on Sunday, July 19. On that day the generals,
hand in hand with the forces of Spanish reaction the mon-
archists, the authoritarian part of the church and embryonic
fascism struck at constituted government at Madrid, Bar-
celona, Valencia and other large cities of Spain.
The French Revolution was not comparable to what
happened in Spain. That revolution moved more slowly,
and there was never an absence of directing authority
whether Commune or Convention for evil or good. In
Spain the props were knocked out from under directing
authority. Such local and provincial governments as existed
in the large provincial capitals were like ships without rud-
der or motive power or sail, desperately battling ungovern-
able waves.
In Barcelona that terrible night of Saturday, July 18,
was like the night before doomsday. Hard words had been
spoken In Madrid these past days. Challenges had been
flung into the very face of the government. Gil Robles had
bearded the government with his threats to "spatter the
very regime with mud, with misery and with blood."
Franco, who had unsuccessfully demanded power on the.
day after the elections of February, was taking it now he
and his coterie of generals. The tragic and regrettable as-
sassination of Calvo Sotelo provided the pretext for re-
bellious action on the part of those who had already decreed:
"Delenda est Republica!" "The Republic must be de-
stroyed!"
The signal for the uprising had been given in Spanish
Morocco on Thursday, the i6th. In desperation the Re-
publican government at Madrid had cut off all telephone
and telegraphic communication both within and without
the country. Don Manuel Azana, now the President, was
desperately striving to conciliate the rebellious factions and
prevent the civil war, the consequences of which he had
foretold In my conversations with him a year previously.
I was to see him again after the events of this day and learn
Prelude to Chaos 189
from him how all his efforts this night to establish a basis
for peace before it was too late were unavailing. The forces
o rebellion had made their plans irrevocably and were deaf
to all pleas.
Rumors flew thick and fast on this night, in the absence
of all media of communication. Even trains had been
stopped so you could not move from one place to another.
You really did not know what was happening except that
the government held firm in Madrid and Valencia and other
large cities.
Here in Barcelona this Saturday night many prayed
that nothing would happen. Catalonia's capital, lusty and
proud with its new powers of autonomous government,
was Spain's greatest industrial and maritime city. In this
place passions ran deep, as in what Spaniards call a "mar de
fondo," meaning a great swelling sea in which powerful
tides push upward and expand from the uttermost depths.
This was a meeting place of turbulent and often revolu-
tionary forces; of Catalan separatism, revolutionary socialism
and anarchy; likewise the currents of burning Republican-
ism. But tonight all these conflicting elements began to
make common cause to defend the Republic.
Knowing these things, and knowing that in the various
military barracks the officer cadres were minded to march
out in battle formation, one still hoped that Sunday morn-
ing would appear warm and serene as usual, and that the
early hours would see families trudging through the streets
with their hampers of food to board an electric train and
ride off to spend the day in the woods or the country. Yet
this night one sensed tragedy moving relentlessly forward
like a Greek drama toward the catastrophe ordained by
the gods.
I had gone down the broad paseo of the Ramblas early
in the evening. And there I lived through a night of con-
fusion and passion, of citizens arming and awaiting the
military challenge that impended, but which everyone still
hoped would not come.
The Ramblas were crowded as I had never seen them.
IQO Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
before. Here I seemed to encounter almost every man I
knew in the city to my best recollection no women. For
instance, there was Josep Trabal, the young Catalan deputy,
who told me: "The anarcho-syndicalists have brought out
their hidden arms; they are distributing them to the police
and other forces of resistance." A hulk of a man came half
running from behind, threw his arms around Trabal and
exclaimed: "Que tal, amigo! Que cuentaT' It was Buena-
ventura Durruti, leader of the anarcho-syndicalists, who
later organized the celebrated Durruti Column which went
up to help defend Mad;id, he to be thereafter assassinated
shot in the back.
The wide promenade of the Ramblas ran down the
center of the avenue. On each side was the vehicular road-
way, cars going down the right, coming back up the left.
The Ramblas ended at the waterside and there autos could
do a U-turn and come back if that suited their purpose.
This situation proved a trap for countless autos which had
entered the Ramblas so that their occupants could inform
themselves of what was happening. At a point about half-
way down the Ramblas each car was stopped and its oc-
cupants questioned by a committee of the embryonic citi-
zens 1 militia. Some cars were allowed to go on. Others had
their sides lettered with chalk. These luckless cars were
obliged to come back up the other side where, in front of
an Improvised counter-revolutionary headquarters, their
cars were receipted for and seized and their occupants ob-
liged to continue their peregrinations afoot.
Towards the night's ending I turned my face home-
ward.
The soft summer's dawn had just begun to break
through the curtains of night when, at the head of the
Ramblas, I began crossing the Pla<;a de Catalunya, with its
gardens and statues, its fountains and flowers. Beyond the
square I passed by the swanky Hotel Col6n and turned into
the Paseo de Gracia. The Colon's outdoor cafe reached
far out toward the street beneath a huge expanse of canopy.
Here all afternoon and evening, in the customary order of
Prelude to Chaos 191
things, citizens gathered for their tertulias, those small club-
like groups of friends who met at stated hours and days to
"exchange impressions." But this early dawn the waiters
were stacking their chairs after the closing. They did not
know how soon this place was fated to play a tragic role in
the attempt to strike down the Republic.
At the encircled monument where the Paseo de Gracia
was crossed by the broad avenue of El Diagonel which cut
clear across the city, I turned down to my apartment a few
doors away. Here at the circle was a battalion of security
police, heavily armed. Any armed rising from the main
military barracks, at Pedralbes, a couple of miles away in
the outskirts of the city, would almost certainly mean that
the troops would come down the avenue to this point and
debouch through the city. The police were seated about on
benches and on the sidewalk prepared to intercept any such
operation, I passed the morning with them and went on.
At my apartment I clapped for the sereno, the watch-
man with the keys to the house, because in Spain one does
not carry keys to the street entrance. When you clapped
your hands, the sereno knocked three times on the pave-
ment with a great stick to let you know he was coming.
"Que cucntaT* "What do you say?" the sereno asked
anxiously.
I briefly told him what I had seen down on the Ram-
bias and said: "I don't think anything will happen either
tonight or tomorrow. The citizens are well prepared to
ward off any attack. The army people must know how de-
termined they are. They will not dare to come out,"
"Ojald!" he agreed, "Yes, I think everything is under
control. The army people would be very rash to attempt
anything/*
Dead tired I lay down on the couch in the front room
facing the street and fell asleep Instantly. In a moment of
brief dreaming sleep and what a panorama of events can
march past in a moment of dreaming I relived those
stirring scenes of April, 1931, when the Republic was bom.
"El nino** the baby, Spaniards called it with that deep af-
192 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
fection of which only Spaniards are capable. I seemed to
remember how they had exclaimed, "This time el nino will
live longer than the first/' meaning the ill-fated Republic
of 1873. On this igth day of July it was aged five years,
three months and five days; a robust youngster now which
had lived all those years, months and days immersed in a
battle for life. It had learned how to fight. It would take
care of itself.
But I could not have been In my deep slumbers for
more than a few minutes when I was awakened by rifle shots
and cries. I could hear frenzied shouting of "Viva la Re-
publica!" answered by cries of "Viva Espana!" This had
become the cry of resistance against the Republic. Then I
heard someone shout "Viva Catalunya!" There was no re-
sponse. The only answer was an increased rifle fire, which
mounted higher and higher.
By now a furious battle was raging. It surged about the
corner of the building where I had passed the Guardias
de Asalto less than forty-five minutes before. Rifles were
cracking on the street that ran back of my block. Standing
behind the shutters of my front balcony I peered down to
the circle but my vision was obscured by the slant of the
street.
Frightened riderless horses raced back and forth in
front of the house. The flock of pigeons that had become so
familiar to me was terrified now as it circled and swooped
down and rose upward again, then swirled back and forth
in evident panic. Groups of men had climbed to the roofs
of the buildings facing my own, and crouched behind the
rising facades which served them as parapets.
I became aware of machine-gun fire in the patio back
of the house. On going there I saw that a machine gun had
been placed in the bell tower of the Carmelite church that
stood on the corner of the Diagonal just above my house.
Bullets were flying through the patio and past my rear
balcony. From various buildings flanking the patio on its four
sides the fire was being returned by men armed with rifles.
Thus the battle raged on all sides of the block.
Prelude to Chaos 193
It later developed that the rebels had gone around the
rear of the block and entered the church which they were
now using as a fortress. A small detachment was left there
while the main column detoored toward the center of the
town. It was evident too that the Carmelite padres and the
rebels fraternized with each other.
By now the battle was general in all parts of the city.
Cannonades began to sound from the foot of the Calle de
Claris, which came up past my house from the center of the
city. Some of the shells ripped down the shade trees that
stood along that side of the street. During a lull I went
out to see what had happened. As I went out some of my
frightened apartment-house neighbors looked out of their
doors. "No tiene miedo! Caramba!" "Aren't you afraid!
Caramba!" they said.
The battle had lasted about an hour. Except for some
rifle crackling, the lull lasted about three hours, or until
about nine o'clock. Presently some groups of picnickers
came down the street with hampers of food. They evidently
were hoping the fracas was over and that they could get
down to the suburban electric train and enjoy that Sunday
outing after all. But there was little to enjoy this Sunday,
either here or out in the country. The would-be picnickers
soon found that suburban service was paralyzed. Such was
the force of custom that not even a revolution could deter
hopeful picnickers from trying to go out for a pleasant Sun-
day as usuaL
After some reconnoitering about the city I managed to
reconstruct the morning's events up to that time. From the
cuartels of the city's periphery, military columns dragging
artillery and machine guns had converged upon the center
of the city and its other most strategic points. The surging
masses that during the night had armed themselves and re-
mained on the alert now formed to meet them. Some had
no arms but staves and bare fists.
From strategic points bands of workers and other citi-
zenry charged the military columns, broke them and cap-
tured or scattered them. They captured the machine guns
i4 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
and the fieldpieces, rushing in recklessly regardless of dan-
ger to life. There was an inferno of explosions and outcries.
The populace showed that it also could play at the game of
covering enemies with "mud, misery and blood/* as the
foes of the Republic had put it. The riderless horses gal-
loped over the bodies of the dead and the dying. From
windows and rooftops everywhere spat more rifle and ma-
chine-gun fire. Motorcars overfilled with armed men raced
through the streets vomiting death. Fieldpieces, now T in the
hands of the populace, boomed from street intersections.
Their shells tore through the length of the streets, slicing
off trees, exploding against a building or blowing a stalled
streetcar or an automobile to bits. Other churches became
fortresses like the Church of the Carmelites. From their
towers spat bullets all the day long.
The populace asked angry questions: "Who opened
those churches to the military conspirators? How does it
happen that the priests and the friars there refuse to admit
the men defending the Republic? How is it explained that
although los rebeldes were fortified in the churches even be-
fore the columns from the cuartels marched into the city,
the Republican forces are not to be found in any of the
churches? The Republic respected the churches and did
not try to use them as fortresses. Was It a mistake for the
people to have respect for their churches?"
These were questions you heard wherever you went.
As the late morning met the noon hour the fighting in
the city gained headway. Barracks were assaulted, and
around them raged battles in which many fell bleeding and
dying. A few ill-equipped planes tried to drop bombs on
rebel strongholds. They seemed like futile floating trapezes
against the bright summer sky.
The great battle raged around the Hotel Coldn. The
Pla^a de Catalunya which had worn such a smiling and
tranquil appearance at dawn, became a grim battlefield.
The rebels had captured the hotel and made it their head-
quarters. Some others had tried to seize the tall telephone
building which faced it across the square, but had not sue-
Prelude to Chaos 195
ceeded. A gaping hole In the building told where It had
been shelled from the plaza. Until late In the afternoon
mortars, hand grenades, machine-gun and rlie fire ripped
through walls and windows of the hotel and Into the build-
ings surrounding the square. The rebels had barricaded
themselves In quite a number of these. One of them was the
Military "Circle" or club which was the second strongest
point of resistance In this area. The military men had had
ample time preceding the revolt to bring in ammunition and
render it strong.
Long before dusk the rebel leader, General Manuel
Coded, who early that morning had flown across a hundred
miles of sea from Majorca to "direct the movement" and
distribute his pronunciamiento,, had surrendered. When
the triumph of the populace became apparent, Coded broad-
cast over the radio advising his followers to lay down their
arms. Notwithstanding, wherever rebels still held their
strongholds they had to be taken by force. The Hotel Colon
was taken about five o'clock in the afternoon. In some
places the fighting was to continue for two or three days.
On this tragic night you heard no jubilant music as
on the day when el nino was born. No one sang the Mar-
seillaise, or the Republican anthem, the Himno del Riego,
or Els SegadorS; the Catalan anthem. Song had gone away
from the hearts of the people. The spitting of machine
guns, or the continued blazing of rifles or of bullets break-
ing through glass or spattering against walls such was the
song of Barcelona this night.
Now everywhere you could see great clouds and pillars
of black smoke and tongues of red flame mounting up to
the heavens: great belching columns twisting and weaving In
the gray evening sky. One column seemed to bend and
reach out for the other, after which they mingled their
smoke and fire, mushrooming like a blackish, flame-streaked
firmament over a jungle of flame. The churches were burn-
ing all over Barcelona.
I walked through this inferno to some of the churches.
Crowds stood about, not as excited mobs but calmly as
ig6 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
spectators observing a spectacle. The show did not stir them
to applause or to exhibitions of feeling. When I entered
one of the churches, which was burning at the sides and at
the altars and chapels up front, an armed revolutionary
came up to ask me: "What are your ideas?" He meant:
Did I belong to any political party? Only a periodista ex-
tranjero "El Teem-es" of London. "Dispense. Passe!"
"Pardon. Pass on."
My way led toward the cathedral. I was curious to see
how it had fared. Civil Guards were posted before its
monumental stairway which extended on the up slope along
its whole front to its massive portal. Other members of the
armed militia were keeping their watch round about. What
remained of the government was powerless to stop the
general burning of churches. Even to attempt to do so might
make it the prey of the popular fury and so sweep it out of
existence. Chaos was already well under way. The sem-
blance of government must be maintained at all costs, to
avert total destruction. How a framework of government
maintained itself erect in the days that ensued seemed to
me almost miraculous. But now constituted authority,
which could not stay the popular anger, concentrated on
saving Barcelona's beautiful and historic cathedral and did.
I walked through a few more tortuous streets of the old
city, which had been there since before the time of the
Arab domination, until I came out on the square before
the church of Santa Maria lying down by the port. Thick
billows of smoke still emerged from the roof openings; the
great shell of the church stood there like a furnace; the fire
was seething within. But it was burning low. Spanish
Gothic churches always have considerable wood in their
interiors great oaken beams that withstand the ravages of
time through the centuries. The wooden reredos of the
altars with their carved images extended almost to the
ceiling; other items of woodwork and inflammable material
were all about. The fire had attacked these, but when it
burned out, the shell of the church, with its interior pillars
and vaulting, would be left standing.
Prelude to Chaos 197
I judged the fire must have been burning about three
hours. It was now around eight o'clock and darkness was
almost complete. There were only a handful of idlers about,
lackadaisically watching the end of the drama. Flames cast
their glow through the huge expanse of rose window high
over the portal that window which so often had cast its
effulgence on the pillared interior, whose vastness and air o
mystery was to fascinate me.
Now the glow of the iames through the window played
about on the cobbled floor of the square, and seemed to
pass fingers of light on the faces of those who looked on for
a time and then turned away.
At length 1 turned away too, retraced my steps through
the narrow winding alleys and streets, came to the PIa<:a de
Catalunya and the Paseo de Gracia, so at length again reach-
ing my house on the Diagonal. Hereabouts there was still
sniping from the housetops, as there would be for several
days. Two Catholic churches and the English community's
Protestant church in the immediate vicinity had been re-
spected up to this time.
Just facing my house was the beautiful Gothic English
chapel, the only individual non-Catholic edifice of which I
knew in all Barcelona. A block away on my street, but on
the other side of the Paseo de Gracia, was the church of
the Capuchin fathers. Although it was on the very edge of
that morning's battle, and would have served well as a rebel
stronghold, the rebels had left it alone. I learned later that
the Capuchin fathers, a branch of the Franciscan order, had
refused to treat with the rebellious elements before the
uprising and were prepared to resist any attempt to desecrate
their monastery-church by turning it into an armed fortress,
as the Carmelites did. The Capuchins were humble friars,
close to the people. All through the ensuing period of mob
activity, and all through the war, no hand was lifted to
harm the Capuchin monastery-church. But turning toward
my house, I still could hear the incessant sputtering of the
machine gun pointed through a slit in the tower of the
Carmelite church. Its scattering of bullets across the patio
igB Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
served no purpose unless It was to give fe de vida a defiant
signal of life.
Such was the prelude to chaos on the igth day of July,
1936, Of this kind were the impacts of the events of this
day on the structure of a society of men organized under the
law. Such w T as the tinder of mob rule and anarchy that in
the days to come would mount higher and higher, and blaze
more and more furiously, until the beams and buttresses of
government crashed to the ground as they had crashed in
the vast Gothic church of Santa Maria. The beams and
buttresses would crash, but the shell would remain.
Monday saw other churches burning. Outside this one
and that stood fire engines, saving not the churches but the
adjoining buildings. There was an aristocratic church on
the Calle de Fontanella flanking the lower end of the Pla^a
de Catalunya. I went inside. Part of the church was burn-
ing. Other parts had not yet been set afire. In one of the
chapels some mob members were tearing a chapel apart.
I was carrying a small paper package. A member of the mob
pointed a pistol at me and demanded to see what was in
the package. He was fingering the trigger. I opened the
package; "Just a little food which I bought in the tienda
across the street, to eat when I get hungry." He was satis-
fied on that score but still kept pointing his pistol. He was
a tough-looking customer I sized him up as one of those
direct-action pistoleros for which Barcelona had long been
noted. He told me to leave the building, which I did. He
then turned back to help pull the altar apart,
It seemed to be a rule that while you might bum
churches, you must not commit robbery, at least not on any
personal account. While many valuable things were taken
away by the groups in charge of the burnings, you were
told that they were being saved for the people, to whom they
belonged- At least in part this was true, for I later had con-
siderable evidence of church treasures in safekeeping.
There was still a vestige of authority left. The pieces
of fire apparatus standing by while some of the churches
were burning, trying to save the neighboring buildings, were
Prelude to Chaos igg
symbols of the last shreds of authority which in the ensuing
weeks and months were trying to salvage the edifice of the
law. In time this remnant of authority would grow stronger
and attempt to refurbish the edifice, to rebuttress it from
without. The attempt would be vain. In the end even the
empty shell of government would be in ruins.
Yet in those first days authority still managed to save
some of Barcelona's most cherished religious edifices, among
them the cathedral, scene of so many events connected with
Spain's history. I learned that a crowd had gathered there,
intent upon forcing its massive portals and putting all that
was inflammable to the torch. This doubtless would have
included the supposedly miraculous wooden crucifix which
was carried on the ship of Don Juan of Austria at the Bat-
tle of Lepanto (1571), and to which was attributed the
victory over the Turks.
The Catalan government, which sat a short distance
away, sent the captain of its Mozos de Escuadra, Perez Fer-
ras, together with the poet Ventura Gassol, Minister of
Education, and some other members of the government, to
dissuade the mob from its purpose.
"But there are arms in the cathedral!"
"Very well/* said Captain Ferras, "choose a committee
and we will go in together to search for the arms."
None were found. More armed mozos arrived, and
the cathedral was saved. The crowd included many church-
hating anarchists. Buenaventura Durruti, their leader, spoke
the deciding word in the cathedral's defense.
The mob then turned its attention to the episcopal
palace where the bishop. Dr. Manuel Irurita Almindoz
resided. (In Spain a bishop or archbishop is commonly re-
ferred to by the simple title of "Doctor.") Here the crowd
became more unruly and the mozos seemed unable to re-
strain it from entering the palace and dragging out the
bishop. Once more Durrati, the anarchist, harangued the
crowd and kept it from entering. Durruti disappeared from
the scene. The crowd was still lingering but the mozos now
held it in check, and were warmly arguing with it, distract-
20o Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
ing attention from the palace. But an observant spectator,
well known to me, told me later: "While the mob and the
mozos were arguing I saw two men slip out of a back alley-
way escorted by Durruti. They wore those black dress-like
smocks such as are worn by grocers in their shops. I recog-
nized one as the bishop. The other was the priest who
served as his secretary." This was the last time Bishop
Irurita Almandoz was publicly seen. So far as I know this
story has never been published. Later I made persistent efforts
to trace him, I learned that he remained in hiding for
nearly a year. He disappeared altogether during the street
fighting from behind barricades in May, 1937. Here for
some days anarchy again possessed the city until put down
by the government which was stronger by now. He was
probably a victim of one of the mobs that in those days
perpetrated many desperate deeds.
The Civil War Becomes a Reality
Barcelona's black July 19 passed into history. But rebel-
lion was showing its head all over Spain. It spread like one
of those forest fires that creeps underground. When it has
been smothered in this place and that, it bursts out again
in new places. It had been smothered in most of the chief
cities: in Madrid, Valencia, Malaga, Alicante, Almeria, Bil-
bao. But it had not yet been crushed in the cities of Old
Castile, of turbulent Andalucia under its red-glowing and
feverish sun; of impoverished Estremadura lying next to
Portugal; of Galicia, of Asturias and of that seat of Carlist
traditionalism, Catholic Navarre. In these regions the rebels
held Burgos and Valladolid; Granada, Seville and Cadiz;
Badajoz, La Coruna, Oviedo, Santander and Pamplona.
And across the Straits of Gibraltar the Moroccans had come
under the standard of revolt and were being poured into
Spain.
In Barcelona an anti-fascist military committee was
formed within a few hours. Poorly equipped columns of
militiamen were rushed to neighboring Aragon, whose capi-
Prelude to Chaos *<"
tal, Saragossa, and other cities, were also in rebel hands. An
expedition was prepared for the isle of Majorca. Every-
where, notwithstanding, you heard blared on the radios:
'The victory is ours! The rebellion is crushed!" For it
really seemed that with the government forces in control
of the capital and of Spain's largest cities and ports, it must
be only a short time until the rebellion collapsed.
The normal life of the community had stopped. Social
conventions broke down. With increasing frequency the
tabus and conventions that make men social beings were
thrown to the winds. The terror got under way.
Human beings believed to be the enemies of the people
were systematically hunted down and killed by terrorist
groups: they were such groups as the direct-action FAI, the
Trotskistas called the POUM, and several others that sprang
up and worked their will in defiance of the government.
It should be understood that the government had no
part in this. The main forces of order had deserted it. The
Civil Guard was wavering and uncertain. Some of these
forces would have liked to liquidate the government itself.
In Barcelona the regional government maintained itself in
the Generalitat palace. But the FAI maintained itself in the
Comandancia, or military headquarters; the Diputacion, or
civil governor's headquarters, was held by the citizens*
militia whose principal concern now was to organize troops
for the fronts.
The Catalan regional government labored incessantly
to save itself from mob action and at the same time to re-
establish law and order, to save property and lives.
The government here, as elsewhere, has been accused of
being the instigator of the terrorism. The fact was the direct
opposite. It directed its efforts to the saving of lives. Priests
and nuns by the hundreds were smuggled aboard British,
American and French destroyers to be taken to Marseilles.
I rode with them in some of these ships and saw them.
Many of the priests whose lives were saved later became the
loudest in defaming the government. The government also
helped save many political persons whose lives were sought
202 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
by the mobs. Among these was the former Prime Minister,
Portela Valladares, who was smuggled aboard a French de-
stoyer dressed as a woman. I was on that destroyer with him
and had a long talk with him about his escape from terror-
ists who had invaded his home on the Paseo de Gracia,
about tw r o blocks from my own. It was from him that I first
learned details of the plans of Mussolini and Hitler, and
Hitler especially, to convert Spain into a tryout battlefield
as a prelude to World War II.
"The uprising in Spain is sheer fascism/' Sefior Portela
told me as the destroyer, La Fortune, lurched through the
Gulf of the Lion toward Port Vendres. "Italy and Germany
are using the rightists in Spain to extend the fascist ideo-
logical domination. You would do well to sound this danger
In your reports I am sure it is not yet understood by the
political leaders in England, and much less by your own
President Roosevelt and those about him."
This was news which had not yet been hinted at in the
press reports. I gave a full account of the interview to my
paper, the London Times. The former Prime Minister
summed up the situation in words which I quoted in the
Fortnightly, of London, for September, 1936: "If the rebels
are successful Spain will become an appendage of Mussolini
and Hitler. Fascism will have acquired three European
fronts. France will be strangled. The deaths of Spain will
be 3,000,000 at least. European history will take a new
course. . , . A friendly gesture made by England to pro-
cure a truce before it is too late, to cause this massacre to
end, might yet avert Fascism in Spain and Communism.'*
How prophetic these words proved to be. But the
Chamberlain-type Tories and their set were in no temper
for making the friendly gesture that might yet have staved
off the martyrdom of Spain and, if followed up, World
War II. Somewhat later in the war Seiior Portela returned
to Spain to cast his lot with the Republicans. The Jesuit
fairy-tale factory then tried to make out that the reason he
stood by the Republic was that, having first offered to side
Prelude to Chaos 205
with the rebels, they would have nothing to do with him,
Portela could never have made a move to side with the
rebels after giving that kind of interview, or in view of his
earnest convictions, or his conduct In having refused to be-
tray the Republic into the hands of Franco and Gil Robles
after the Republican electoral victory, and In summoning
the Republic to assume power at once.
Quite by chance I met Senor Portela several times after
that in France, once on a railway train. He had been repre-
sented as an old-fashioned, well-meaning but somewhat
dreamy nineteenth-century antique. I found him quite the
contrary. He was a tall, white-haired gentleman of distin-
guished appearance who must have been past seventy, with
as alert a mind and as keen a comprehension of the facts
of the varied political eddies and currents of the iggo's as
I have ever encountered. Apparently the rebels were willing
to forgive his lapse at the time of Franco's visit to him to
demand the dictatorship. He told me:
"Almost Immediately after I left you, after we stepped
off the destroyer in France, agents of the rebels came to me
and said my support would be welcome at Burgos. I refused.
Although my political tendencies have always been toward
the right, I could not join a movement which had for Its
object the ruination of Spain and the wholsale shedding of
Spanish blood. My loyalty to Spain as a Spaniard comes
first.
"Should Franco win he cannot govern Spain. He repre-
sents feudalism, sectarianism, fanaticism, privilege, ideas
and doctrines which the people of Spain will never accept.
He could impose on the country a system in which the great
mass of Spaniards, with their strongly marked social and
political doctrines, such as Republicanism and Socialism,
would find no place. It would be a misfit system which
could never succeed and would only entail further ruin
and disorder for Spain/*
That was a prophetic forecast of what since has hap-
pened. Franco has never governed Spain by any concept o
204 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
the term government. What he is and does the nation has
never accepted. Ruin and disorder followed his military
'Victory," with promise of more yet to come.
Cruelty begets cruelty. The mob spirit in those parts of
Spain that had triumphed over the military rebellion was
intensified by the reports that came from every side of the
terrible campaigns of mass murder on the part of the rebels.
The rebels encouraged these mass executions as a matter of
policy; they boasted of them; the rebel camp itself w T as
responsible for, and systematically waged, the campaign of
exterminating its enemies. This was not true on the Re-
publican side the side which popularly came to be called
the Loyalist in England and the United States.
The people had already heard with horror of the mas-
sacre the rebels perpetrated at Badajoz, where several hun-
dred peasants and workers were herded into the bullring
and machine-gunned to death. They had also heard o such
cases as the massacre of an entire army of workers, fifteen
hundred strong, who had gone forth from Oviedo to help
save the Republic. The militiamen were mostly Asturian
miners. The "Republican'* General Antonio Aranda had
organized troop trains to send them to the Madrid front
to help save the Republicans. Aranda posed as a loyal Re-
publican who was indignant at the treasonable conduct of
his fellow generals. Actually he was in collusion with them,
and signaled to them the route of the troop trains. At Val-
ladolid, which was controlled by the rebels, between eight
and nine hundred were taken out of the trains, marched to
the square and machine-gunned, just as had occurred at
Badajoz. Others who followed in another train were mur-
dered as they slept when cannon shot was poured on the
train until it became a mass of wrecked cars and mangled
bodies.
It would be possible to tell many stories of the dread-
ful excesses and thirst for blood of which luckless Republi-
can sympathizers in rebel-dominated territory were victims.
Let me tell only one of them as related to me by a man
whom I got to know very well, the camarero who waited on
Prelude to Chaos 205
me at my hotel In Valencia, and later In Barcelona. It may
still be prudent not to divulge his full name, but his first
name was Angelo. He had been a member of a defense
committee In Huesca province and had managed to escape
before the rebels took over. At the time he still had two
sisters In rebel territory.
"My brother was a young schoolmaster, twenty-five
years old, and strongly Republican. During the period of
the Republic he had committed no other offense but to give
all his attention to teaching, as was his duty, and to write
several pieces In the press In defense of the modern school.
But he had also incurred the enmity of the Civil Guard be-
cause he had urged that a somewhat pretentious building
which they occupied, and did not really need, be converted
to school uses. The school had no decent place In which
to carry on its activities.
"As soon as the rebels obtained control of the town
where he was, the Falangistas seized him, beat him brutally
and tortured him in an effort to make him confess things
of which he had no knowledge. After two days of this tor-
ture he opened an artery with his teeth in the hope of end-
ing his sufferings. He did not succeed. His savage captors
bound up the wound and after several days took him and
nine other prisoners from the prison and shot them.
"When my mother learned of this crime she died of a
heart attack.
"My dear father went to the Civil Governor to speak
with the authorities and try to find out what had become of
his unfortunate son. He never returned to the house. Six
weeks passed; no one could give us a clue to his where-
abouts. But at length we found a cemetery employee who
told us that on a certain date he had seen eighteen men
marched to the cemetery and shot, and that he was ordered
to bury them. He recognized one of them as my dear
.father.
"In the meantime, however, my sister Cristina, nine-
teen years old, left the house in company with an uncle,
fifty-three years old, to make inquiries about our father at
206 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
the Civil Governor's headquarters. She was directed to
several senoritos of the Falange. These, instead of answering
her, began to take liberties with her which she could never
permit. She struck one of them in the face with her hand.
They arrested her and hustled her to prison, and to this
day we have had no further word of her."
In spite of Republican reverses Angelo was still hope-
ful of ultimate victory and had made his plans for going
to Malaga and opening a hotel the business he knew.
"On that day/' he said, "no one will have to fear that
kind of outrages. We will not see miserable caricatures of
human beings with empty stomachs, in rags and with bare
feet because we, whom the fascists slander by calling us
reds, are more humanitarian than they. That day no one
will have to be idle, or die of hunger/'
In the first days of the war the rebels announced their
principle of collective responsibility for what they called the
"crime" of opposing rebellion and being loyal to the Re-
public. And so the inhabitants of towns and villages were
collectively slaughtered. Sometimes there would be a cere-
mony with music, when Republican mayors and other lead-
ing men of the towns would be executed in a public square
in front of a cathedral or in a cemetery, as heretics used
to be with a ceremonial auto-da-fe.
International Brigade and Communists
In September, somewhat more than two months after
the rebellion's commencement, music was again sounding
in the streets of the cities held by the Republic. It was an-
other kind of "Marseillaise" now "The International/*
It was a great blow to the hopes of the Republic's sup-
porters when the democracies refused to sell them arms.
Without arms they simply could not defend the Republic.
In desperation they turned to Russia. Moscow kept them
waiting two months before deciding to render assistance. In
the meantime Italian and German troops were pouring into
rebel-held Andalucia from Spanish Morocco. The rebel
Prelude to Chaos 207
forces had moved to the edge of Madrid and even held some
of its suburbs. It was being bombed unmercifully by Fascist
planes sent by Italy and Germany. Though the people
heroically resisted, it began to look as though the enemy
would enter the city. Then one day a new type of plane
appeared over the city so unfamiliar that Republican rifle-
men and machine-gunners on rooftops thought they were
enemy planes too and began firing on them. The newcomers
were Russian planes. The government frantically sent out
orders to stop the firing which wounded and perhaps killed
some of their crewmen. But the situation was saved. Ma-
drid thereafter had mastery of the air above it.
Some of the groups on the Republican side began to
fight among themselves. Particularism, that outcropping of
Spanish individualism, reared its head. There w T ere struggles
for "control of the government/* and "control of the revolu-
tion." Some terrorists even demanded the government's
"liquidation." What a sinister role that word "liquidation"
w^as fated to play in this struggle: Liquidation of men. Liq-
uidation of opposing parties. Attempted liquidation of the
forces of law.
July August September the war spread and spread.
I journeyed here and there to Valencia, to the Teruel line, to
various parts of eastern and southern Spain covering the
various fronts and the events in the regional and provincial
capitals. In October I went to Valencia again on a British
destroyer with the intention of journeying up to Madrid,
now besieged. Reports were that it would be cut off any
moment. The destroyer's captain and the British consul
were greatly disturbed. 1 would never reach Madrid, they
warned. Or if I did, I would never get back. One night
train was running. I decided to go.
Madrid was a battlefield. The rebels had planted their
cannon near the outskirts. Their planes flew overhead to
fight with the planes the Russians had sent. The shops were
empty. Oddly, the article of food most on display looked
like nice yellow butter and so it was labeled. I bought
some and confidently took it to my hosts who had com-
so8 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
plained that no butter was to be had in all Madrid. They
were right. Whatever the deceptive yellow stuff was, it was
surely not butter.
The Madrid populace was stolid, heroic. It refused to
leave its beloved city despite all the government's pleadings.
It stayed on and hungered and hoped. Doubtless it also
prayed but not in the churches. The churches were closed,
many were burned.
The government still hung on grimly. President Azafia
was domiciled in the Palacio Nacional, the old home of the
kings, the same palace from which Alfonso XIII had been
escorted on April 14, 1931. I remembered Azana's forecast
of a revolution on that day when I talked to him in the
Catalan mountains, and I wondered what his feelings were
now that the revolution had come. I decided to call on
him. The interview he gave me was the first since the re-
bellion had broken. I telephoned it to the London Times
that night October 15. It was widely reproduced and com-
mented on in the European press. The censor who passed it
told me later that he had done so over the protests of some
of the revolutionary elements. "They didn't like it, but I
sent it just the same/* he said.
Here are some of the excerpts from the interview he
gave me:
"It is evident that this is not a purely internal conflict;
the scope is international. We claim that there was con-
nivance between the authors of the revolt and certain for-
eign governments which I prefer not to name. It seems
equally certain that the outcome, whatever it is, will have
important repercussions on international affairs/'
At that time the friends of the rebels in the United
States and England were warmly denying that German and
Italian military assistance was being offered the rebels. They
accused correspondents who reported the facts of not telling
the truth. The American Catholic press was particularly
vociferous in such denunciations, some of which were being
directed at me.
Azafia also said: "I am sure that the military elements,
Prelude to Chaos 209
if they could have foreseen that this war would be so cruel
and destructive, would never have started It. They thought
It would be a question of two or three days. But events
proved them mistaken."
I asked what future he saw for the Republic under the
changed circumstances. He replied: "The Republic will
take no other course than to continue Its social program In
a perfectly legal way. The will of the people will be ex-
pressed through universal suffrage and the Parliament
there will be a truly representative government of the peo-
ple. New impetus will be given to agrarian reforms, and
no doubt there will be certain innovations, designed to
introduce into Industry a fairer life for the worker. But
Spain will be neither anarchist nor Communist no, no,
that is not the thing!"
At that time both the anarcho-syndicalists and a new
crop of Communists, under the stimulus of the arms aid
coming from Russia, were engaged in a struggle for power,
and It was these groups that took offense at the President's
repudiation of their dreams of becoming the rulers of Spain.
The crowded train I took back to Valencia was the last
to leave Madrid for the rest of the war. The previous week
while I was In France sending some uncensored stories, the
French press had already reported that communications
were cut. This was not true, but for nearly two weeks the
rebels had been making night raids in an effort to Intercept
trains and demolish sections of track. The day after my
return to Valencia they succeeded. Yet highway communica-
tions between Madrid and Valencia were maintained to the
very end of the war. When, in January, 1937, the govern-
ment found the situation in Madrid no longer tenable it
moved by automobile and truck to a new temporary capital
at Valencia. And from Valencia, for two years thereafter,
munitions and food supplies were regularly sent up to Ma-
drid by truck.
The first Russian aid in the form of planes over Ma-
drid had come two months after the start of the war. Then
came the Soviet advance guard in the form of diplomatic
2io Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
and consular officers, commercial and military attaches,
Tass agency correspondents, special writers like Ilya Ehren-
burg, secret police.
The fact that Russia did not decide to send aid until
two months after the outbreak of the rebellion is important
in view of the fact that the apologists for Franco charged
that the Republican government was working in collabora-
tion with the Soviet Union. The fact is that the Republic
declined to have diplomatic relations with Russia up to
the time of the rebellion. A former Russian intelligence
agent, K. G. Krivitsky, who later went to the United States
and turned informer against the Soviet system, and who was
no friendly witness where Republican Spain was concerned,
has told how the Kremlin kept the Spanish delegates, who
had come to ask for arms, waiting for weeks in Odessa before
making up its mind to receive them. In the Saturday Eve-
ning Post for April 15, 1939, he wrote: "five years of costly
propaganda [1931 to 1936] had produced in Spain only
3,000 Communists."
The people, with their intuitive capacity for forming
swift likes and dislikes, received the Russians with the great-
est of sympathy. Spaniards by tradition and temperament
were not Communists. But that question now seemed beside
the point, Spain had to be saved and here were those who
had come as friends to assist in the work of salvation. That
was the thought of the people. The Russians at this time
held the keys to the hearts of the people. And they lost no
opportunity to traffic in their special position.
International brigades had come from all parts of Eu-
rope from democratic Czechoslovakia, from Germany and
France, from the Scandinavian countries. They were also
coming from the United States and England. The impetus
that brought them to Spain was their devotion to freedom,
their admiration for a people fighting to maintain their
liberties against fearful odds. It was the spirit that had
inspired Byron to champion the cause of the Greeks when
they fought for liberty; Wordsworth to raise his voice for
Prelude to Chaos 211
an other-day Spain when its liberties as now were being
ground In the dust.
There were Indeed Communists in the International
brigades. Communists began muscling in; they brought In
their military commissars, political agents who in theory
were to be a kind of cushion between the men and their
officers, In order to soften the asperities of military life and
see that the officers did not exercise unjust and arbitrary
powers over the men. This was the theory. The fact was
that these commissars were Intended to override or Intimi-
date the officers when and as necessary, and to give the Com-
munists control of the International volunteer army. It was
not long before the Spaniards, with "mucho ojo" "much
eye" saw this; It became a mounting cause of friction during
the rest of the war-
So much has been said about the Communist influence
and the presumed sinister aspects of the International bri-
gade, that It may be well to quote some of the views of the
New York Times staff correspondent, Herbert Matthews, in
his excellent book, Two Wars and More to Come:
There has been nothing like the Internationa! Column In modern
history. I suppose one would have to go back to the Crusades to find
a group of men from all over the known world, fighting purely and
simply for an ideal. Many men have given their lives, and many
more will do so before the conflict ends, not for home or country or
money or because they were drafted and ordered to go, but because
of the deep conviction that this world will not be worth living in if
Fascism triumphs. ... A large majority of the volunteers are Com-
munists, and propaganda is strong to make them all Communists,
but the fact remains that there is a goodly proportion of democrats,
republicans, liberals, Socialists, and men who do not know what they
are except that they hate Fascism. . . . You cannot dismiss these
youngsters [the Americans] with the contemptuous label of "Reds,**
They are not fighting for Moscow but for their ideals and because
they would rather die than see a Fascist regime under any shape or
auspices installed In the United States.
There were no Russian troops in Spain. The Russians
who were there were mainly technicians such as pilots, tank
drivers and mechanics and so on, and these in time were
212 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
replaced by Spaniards. There were a considerable number
of Russian officers in command positions. Most of the Span-
ish officers had gone over to the rebels, and the government
had not yet time to train its own officers from among the
militiamen. But officer training camps were being already
set up. As in the wars under the Bourbons some natural-
born Spanish war leaders also made their appearance.
The government in Madrid had been reorganized so
as to contain members of all popular elements, including
one Communist. Largo Caballero, leader of the left-wing
Socialists, was Prime Minister. Behind the scenes the Rus-
sian ambassador was giving advice to the government which
had the peremptory urgency of orders. This angered Cabal-
lero. The story soon became current, and was confirmed to
me by some of Caballero's closest disciples, that he had had
a most violent scene one day with the Russian ambassador
who was attempting to lay down the law.
"The Spanish government/" said Caballero, "Is not ac-
customed to listen to such talk from a foreign ambassador
and if you persist, I'll throw you out of the window!"
However it takes more than an insult to penetrate the
hide of a dyed-in-the-wool Communist emissary bent upon
imposing a policy. The Russians continued their policy of
trying to dominate the international brigade as well as the
regular Republican militias by the system of commissars;
of controlling the distribution of arms and of the consider-
able arms industry that was growing up in Barcelona; of
controlling the government themselves.
In this they had strong opposition from such men as
Azafia, Caballero, Nocolau D'Olwer, a great liberal Catalan,
Minister of Hacienda, or Treasury, and of others. But one
.could not get around the fact that Spain could not go it
alone now without Russia's war supplies. Other members of
the government felt it prudent to hold their impetuous
anti-Communist colleagues in check.
The PSUC, or Communist-dominated Socialist party
which had been formed in Barcelona, was an outcropping
of the Russian penetration into Spain. It adhered to the
Two Years of War End in Defeat 213
Comintern, but was far from orthodox Marxism. It was
the product of the realistic thinking and drive of the simon-
pure Communist agents. Moscow had studied the psychol-
ogy of Spaniards and knew that they did not make good
Communists. But It knew that at the same time there were
In Catalonia a considerable body of dissatisfied elements.
Among them were the workers of the Socialist unions who
did not like to see the CNT monopolize control of the
workers; there were the extremely well-to-do landowners
who could not forgive the Catalan government for the ley
de cultivos; there were many who lived In fear and felt they
could get protection if they signed up under the Communist
banner; there were the usual hordes of opportunists who
saw a chance of getting ahead by coming In on the band
wagon.
And so a quite bourgeois party was organized to wear
the Communist trademark. At least they w r ere tropas* But
what kind of tropasf Its members had a varied assortment
of political and social philosophies. Doubtless the true Com-
munists were smart enough to know that It could only be a
transitory affair since It lacked the first requisite of any mass
movement in Spain, namely, that It must be formed desde
abajo y from the ground up. Of no country was It truer than
of Spain that Communism can't be exported or, as the
case may be, imported.
15 Two Years of War End in Defeat
While the government installed itself In the new pro-
visional capital of Valencia, in October, Madrid settled
down to beating off the rebels who were entrenched in the
buildings of the University City in the outskirts. But the
government had hardly got down to business when a new
ministerial crisis was provoked by the aggressive tactics of
214: Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
the Communists. Out of the crisis there emerged the strang-
est family of ministers that Spain ever had seen. There was
an anarchist Minister of Justice and a Marxist Minister
of Education.
The situation had forced the non-political anarcho-
syndicalists to participate in the government or pass out of
the picture. The government felt that bringing the an-
archo-syndicalists into the cabinet would have a moderating
effect on the syndicalists, as it eventually did. The Com-
munists largely controlled the distribution of arms; and the
anarchists, whose intense individualism placed them at the
opposite pole from the Communists, felt that participating
in the government even though organized government
was contrary to their most fundamental beliefs would be
a means of obtaining arms for their militias. Largo Cabal-
lero, the left-wing Socialist leader, remained as Prime Min-
ister, still hostile to the Russian Communists.
The anarchists had a strongly benevolent streak despite
their theories of direct action, which their philosophy held
to be a short cut to establishing the brotherhood of man by
speedy liquidation of the unbrotherly. This philosophy was
often translated into the formula, "Kill without hate."
Spain was the only country in Europe where the doctrines
of Mikhail Bakunin took hold in the late nineteenth cen-
tury. Bakunin and Karl Marx, the former a Russian and
the latter a German, were at the beginning collaborators in
a new social doctrine, but their ways eventually parted on
the vital issue of individualism versus collectivism. The
doctrine of Bakunin Bakuninism held to the theory of
the innate goodness of the individual and the consequent
futility of law and government anarchy, that is. The doc-
trine of Marx spoke of social organization along collective
lines, such as would be impossible without bureaucratic
government. The intensely individualistic Spanish worker
was attracted to the individualistic theories of anarchy. As
a result there was evolved an extensive labor union, reach-
ing to all parts of Spain, known as the single syndicate
sindicato unico. The juncture of the anarchist federation
Two Years of War End in Defeat 215
known as the FAI Federation Anarquistica Ibrica and
the one big union was known as anarcho-syndicalism. Its
rival labor union was ruled by the Socialist party which,
as has been previously seen, was dominated by a moderate
and a radical wing.*
The anarchists believed that the earth was the true
place for establishing the Kingdom of Heaven. They called
the Saviour "Comrade Jesus." Most of them like Juan
Garcia Oliver, the new Minister of Justice bore Christian
names and most of them were nominal Catholics, although
at the same time Inveterate haters of the clergy. Here is a
bit of their philosophy as the new Minister of Justice ex-
pounded It:
Man does not proceed from God; lie proceeds from the cavern
and the beast, wherefore his reactions are those of the beast. The task
of society is to separate man from his origin; to combat the cavern
and the beast which we all have within us. ... Justice is a thing
so subtle that, in order to interpret it, one need only have a heart.
The business of interpreting laws produces no riches. Engineers,
mechanics, land workers it is they who produce riches.
The war had been directed from Valencia since Octo-
ber with more successes than failures. The government wa^
elated by the rout of 30,000 Italians at Guadalajara those
Fascist soldiers sent to Spain by Mussolini. When I spoke
to the Italian prisoners I could easily see why they were
beaten they had no heart in the fight. Some o them told
me they had been duped Into going to Spain they had
been told they were going to Abyssinia to be settled on the
land and there to prepare a place for their families.
But on February 8 the government suffered a severe
blow In the fall of Malaga largely through the treachery of
some of the leftover regular officers who acted as veritable
fifth columnists by preparing the way for the enemy. Fresh
Italian troops simply walked Into the city while the Inhabi-
tants fled on the coast road to Almeria, a score or so of miles
nearer Valencia.
*See my article, "Mas Movements in Spain/* Foreign Affairs,
July, 1936.
2i6 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
I found this seaport packed with refugees. It was a
pitiful sight. They were crowded into churches, warehouses,
any place that afforded them shelter. A family's home was
a space on an open floor no larger than the family could
sit in. Others made their homes in the public square which
was similarly crowded. A night or two after Malaga fell,
bombs were dropped on them as they slept.
One of the most heartrending problems that confronted
the government at this period was the efforts of the emis-
saries of Soviet Russia who had moved in, to treat Republi-
can Spain as a satellite. It was obvious that Communist
Russia does not understand any other kind of relationship
with a country which by force of circumstance is dependent
upon it for assistance. The refusal of the democratic coun-
tries to help Spain, as we have seen, had virtually thrown
the Spanish government into Russian arms. It had no other
place to turn for military hardware and airplanes with
which to fight off the Italian and German invaders who
poured in freely on the side of the enemy. The Republican
government's dilemma was how to conduct itself so as not
to incur the ill will of the Russians who could retaliate by
cutting off their assistance, and at the same time keep the
Russians at arm's length. Spain is the last country in the
world to accept the status of satellite of Russia or of any
other country. At no time did the Russians succeed in gain-
ing a controlling voice in the government. But the govern-
ment in turn had to tolerate certain Russian activities in
other quarters. One of these was an attempt to eliminate
the militias of the various parties upon which the Republi-
can defense in the early part of the war had almost wholly
depended. Another was a Russian secret police system which
proceeded to institute purges of men whom the Russian
police reported to be fascists. The Russian purge was par-
ticularly directed toward those heretic Communists known
as Trotskyites Trotskistas who ha^l found a haven in
Spain even in monarchist days and who were the inveterate
enemies of the Stalinist bureaucracy.
Two Years of War End in Defeat 217
The "Cheka" which the Russians maintained at Valencia
went Into action with all the devices of programmed ter-
rorism. There were arrests in the middle of the night and
the usual heartrending procedures connected with that sort
of thing. Several times I went to bat energetically to protect
Communist victims. A number of appeals from parents in
both the United States and England, whose sons were In
trouble with the Cheka, were channeled to me. They were
usually members of the International brigades who had
incurred the 111 will of the Communists who were trying to
muscle in there as elsewhere. I took a strong line at the
Ministries of the Interior and of War, where I had friends,
and in each case procured their release. These ministries
were not Russian-dominated, and under certain circum-
stances could Impose their will on the Russians.
One night Russian agents Invaded the Hotel Victoria,
where most of the correspondents were staying, entered the
room where the International News Service correspondent
whom we called Angel real name Angeloupoulos was
sleeping, and hauled him off to the Cheka. Angel was some-
thing of an eager beaver as a newsgatherer and not very
cautious In his choice of Spanish companions. He had been
observed in the cafes talking with suspected persons and
so the Russian agents concluded he was working with spies.
I put the situation up to my fellow correspondents.
There were two or three Communists among them from the
English Red press who pooh-poohed my show of concern.
Others went along with me. I led a group of them to see
the Minister of the Interior. I went to see other ministers.
I became more and more insistent as nothing happened.
The head of the censorship bureau called me on the carpet,
pounded his fist on the table and said that this had to stop
that I was Irritating the government. I also pounded my
fist in reply and said I wanted to irritate the government
since that seemed to be necessary. He calmed down and
said I ought to have been a missionary. Angel was released
next day. He told me how he had got the usual Cheka
2i8 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
treatment: bare room; taken out two or three times in the
night for lengthy questioning; kept in a state of hunger and
fatigue.
The condition on which Angel was released was that
he get out of Spain. That same day the Communist news-
paper at Valencia came out with a banner line over a story
telling how Communist vigilance had captured a spy dis-
guised as a newspaper correspondent and how he had
mercifully been allowed to leave the country. It was a
masterpiece of fabrication. I accompanied Angel to the
British Embassy to arrange for his departure on a British
warship. As I felt sure we would be followed I decided to
spot the shadowing agent which I did; I noticed him saun-
tering along, walking ahead and pretending to look into
show windows; picking up our trail, crossing the street near
the Embassy and posting himself in a doorway. When we
left the Embassy I spotted him standing just around the
street corner, I waved my hand at him and went on.
Valencia was bombed regularly two or three times a
week, almost always after midnight. About once a week it
was also shelled from the sea. On May 27, 1937, the Ger-
man pocket battleship Deutschland was at Ibiza of the
Balearic Island group, where it had no business to be under
the non-intervention agreement. Loyalist planes spotted it.
Their pilots said the Deutschland fired on them but the Ger-
mans denied it. In any event the planes let loose with their
bombs. Twenty of the crew were killed and seventy-three
injured, while the battleship was severely damaged.
When the news of the bombing reached Valencia it
caused a tense situation. That night there came to my table
at the Hotel Victoria an amiable, rather heavy-set person of
German extraction. Dining-room camaraderie was infor-
mal and all sorts of persons sat down at one's table to chat.
This particular man had frequently come to chat with me
about many things and to "exchange impressions/' as the
Spaniards put it. Tonight he said: "The Germans will re-
taliate, of that I am sure. I know them. I fear they will
bombard Valencia." It was only after the war that I learned
Two Years of War End in Defeat 219
that my amiable erstwhile table companion was actually
the head of the Russian secret police in Valencia. He had
made no secret of being in communication with Moscow,
but I did not know his true position.
That night the Valencia populace was ordered under-
ground in shelters and in the below-surface stalls of the
sunken flower garden in the main plaza facing the city hall.
Nothing happened. But on May 30, came the shocking news
that at dawn the Germans had shelled Alineria, still crowded
with refugees.
The pocket battleship Admiral von Scheer and four
destroyers approached the city and shelled all quarters of It
systematically. The action was under the direction of Ad-
miral Raeder, who was later to become the German navy's
commander-in-chief. Watchmen had given warning of the
squadron's approach. The mam population had already
fled to shelters or beyond the bounds of the city. The toll
was twenty-four dead and a hundred or somew r hat more In-
jured. But the destruction of the city was great.
While these events were happening at Valencia and at
Almeria in this month of May, there was a strange and tragic
uprising at Barcelona, the outgrowth of the Russian Com-
munists* attempts to bring the party militias under Russian
control. On Its surface It had the appearance of a conflict
among the very forces that ought to have been united In
defense of the Republic, and in large measure so it was.
But at bottom It was a Spanish revolt against Communist
maneuvers. These militias had been at the front since the
beginning of the war. They had stood the brunt o the
defense on the eastern front, protecting the Catalan borders.
Now they were being denied arms while at the same time
the supplies of arms and munitions in Barcelona were in-
creasing. Worse than this, when militiamen came to Bar-
celona on leave they found themselves placed under arrest.
It was a spontaneous uprising without leadership In this
respect (although not In other particulars) somewhat like
the leaderless uprising of the populace in Budapest in the
fall of 1956- I had a tip that something was brewing In Bar-
S20 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
celona and went there and lived through those days of bar-
ricade fighting and managed to get my stories out over the
wireless.*
Dr. Juan Negrin Becomes Prime Minister
The Barcelona street fighting had violent repercussions
in the Valencia government. A new rising figure in Spain's
political life, Dr. Juan Negrin, became the Prime Minister.
He was to dominate the government until the end of the
war. One of his policies was to effect a modus vivendi with
the Communists, for he realized that without the military
hardware which only they would be able to supply and
which the democracies refused to permit Spain to purchase
from them the war would be lost. Because of his concili-
atory policy In this respect he was sometimes accused of
being a fellow traveler and sometimes a Communist. Nei-
ther accusation was true. It was he in fact who, in the fol-
lowing year, had worked out a program whereunder all
foreign volunteer forces, Including the International Brigade
which the Communists had thoroughly infiltrated, should
step out of the fighting and retire from Spain. Spaniards,
he said, should fight the war by themselves. One of the
effects of this policy was the elimination of Communist in-
fluence in the conduct of the war and In the army command.
Another effect was to meet the growing criticisms abroad,
and In England particularly, that Franco's war was a war
against Communists. Franco's propaganda persistently re-
ferred to the Republicans as "reds" as It continued to do
after the war and this propaganda was having its effect on
foreign thinking. It is likely that Negrin, when he took
office on May 17, 1937, realized that the Republic was fight-
ing a losing war unless it could have help from the democ-
racies. He also realized that there was no hope of such help
except on the chance that the democracies should become
* See my article "Revolutionary Forces in Catalonia," Foreign
Affairs, July, 1937; for an excellent detailed account also read George
Orwell's small book, Homage to Catalonia.
Two Years of War End in Defeat 221
allies with Republican Spain ie an impending war Involving
all Europe.
Negrin saw clearly as the democracies did not that
World War II had already started in Spain. This Civil
War was its prelude, and if the Loyalists could hold out
long enough, Britain and France, and other European de-
mocracies, would automatically be in it with Spain, This
was the meaning of his refusal to capitulate after Barcelona's
fall, and his efforts to continue the defense of Madrid until
April i, 1939. Britain and France did not declare war on
Germany until five months later.
Shortly after Negrin took office in May, 1937, being in
London, I was invited to call on Winston Churchill. He
was then on the sidelines as a severe critic of the Chamber-
lain government for its failure to provide Britain with mili-
tary air power. He too saw how a new world war was shap-
ing up. We had a long talk about the situation in Spain.
"Both sides are asking me to speak out in their favor/* he
told me. "It is such a terrible business I am very per-
plexed." After some reflection he added: "When you go
back to Spain you might convey to the Republican govern-
ment that I will come out in favor of the side that shows
most humanity."
Some time later, when I had an interview with Negrin,
I gave him Churchill's message.
(Churchill did eventually pronounce himself in favor
of the Republic but it was already too late to have any
effect on the issue of war which by then was being decided
by fast-moving military events.)
I talked with Negrin about many things affecting the
war. I wanted to know what kind of government he had in
mind for the future of Spain. He conveyed the idea that he
was thinking of a government which should conciliate the
forces which were now in rebellion. "Spain needs a strong
government something which can hold all Spanish ele-
ments together/' But he would not elaborate on just what
kind of form his "strong government*' would take.
One of Dr. Negrin's tasks was to whip a new Spanish
222 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
ariny_ into shape. Officer schools were expanded and
strengthened. The Incorporation of independent party
jnilitias into the unified national army continued. A draft
order was issued whereunder all able-bodied Spaniards were
required to do military service. Up to this time military
service had either been voluntary or coerced by the parties
which maintained the militias.
Dr. Negrin, a heavy, full-faced man, with a suave, easy
almost simple manner, was a scientist with a scientist's
outlook. A native of the Canary Islands, he had spent four-
teen of his earlier years as a student in Germany where
he acquired a broad education which, among other things,
included medicine and political economy. He became a
professor of medicine at Madrid University. Soon after the
outbreak of the Civil War he became Minister of Finance.
It was the ability he demonstrated in that position which
eventually led to his designation as Prime Minister. In poli-
tics he was a moderate Socialist. (After the Civil War Dr,
Negrin lived as an exile in both London and Paris; he died
in Paris on November 14, 1956.)
When Negrin took over the premiership, the Republic
still held a considerable fringe of the Atlantic periphery.
Bilbao, the Basque stronghold, was making an heroic de-
fense in spite of the fact that it was cut off from the rest of
Republican Spain and virtually besieged. German and Ital-
ian planes systematically bombed its cities, and singled out
their churches especially, killing a number of priests who
were engaged in church services. The Basque priests stood
loyally by the people. Of all the Spanish clergy they were
the ones who stood in closest relation to their flocks. In fact
the Basque pastors were almost the only Spanish priests to
give meaning to the pastoral concept by acting as vigilant
shepherds.
Other cities along the Atlantic, likewise cut off from
Republican-held territory looking toward the Mediterra-
nean, were making stands for their lives. They were such
provinces and regions as Galicia, Asturias and Santander.
They lacked arms and munitions, which had to be brought
Two Years of War End in Defeat 225
in by sea. It was in the early part of this year that the rebels
had captured the ship Mar Canfabrico, which had sailed
from New York just before President Roosevelt, capitulat-
ing to Catholic political pressure, had proclaimed an em-
bargo that act which to desperately fighting Spaniards
seemed like an assist to fascism: a stab in the back.
It was a severe blow to the Republic's hopes when Bil-
bao fell on June 19. All the Basque people were in mourn-
ing for the destruction of their sacred city, Guernica, by
German and Italian planes. Cynically Franco afterward de-
clared that no planes on his side had left the ground on that
day.
The fall of Bilbao was followed by that of Santander
on August 25 and of Gijon on October 22. When in the
end the rebel force also dominated Asturias, the Asturians
took to their mountains. There they continued to fight
long after the end of the war. Asturians never give in.
Barcelona the New Provisional Capital
On October 31, 1937, the Republican central govern-
ment moved from Valencia to Barcelona. One of a number
of reasons for this was danger of a surprise rebel offensive
against Valencia which might make a hasty departure im-
perative. Another reason was that the important munitions
industry had been established there by the Catalans. The
central government felt the necessity of speeding manu-
facture and coordinating distribution. Still a third object
was to draw Catalonia in closer bonds to the government.
The Soviet-style Communists were now being dove-
tailed into the new order of things: the friction between
them and the government had been greatly reduced. They
were excellent organizers and they had a sense of pressing
time which Spaniards, so accustomed to seeing life against
a background of eternity, often had not. The brigades
they had whipped into shape had become an essential factor
in waging the war. Notwithstanding, Senor Indalecio Prieto,
who had succeeded Caballero as War Minister, kept a firm
224 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
hand on the army. He recaptured from the Communists
the appointment of war commissars, those functionaries who
stood as buffers between officers and men, and one of whose
tasks was to hearten the men and help in their troubles.
Less than two months after the government moved to
Barcelona, it struck a dramatic blow at Teruel. On Decem-
ber 22 its armies entered that city of some 15,000 lying inland
from the coast between Barcelona and Valencia. Spanish
pride had come to the fore in this exploit. War Minister
Prieto, in preparing it, had decided it would be an all-Span-
ish affair. The international brigades were left out of the
action. The surprise was so sudden that many rebels and
their sympathizers were unable to leave the city. They
had taken refuge in the underground areas of the Santa
Clara Convent, in the Bank of Spain and some other build-
ings. There they defied the town's new masters. There
were at least five thousand of them. Hunger, thirst and the
continued assault forced their surrender after nearly seven
weeks of siege. Among them was the commander, Lieuten-
ant Colonel Rey d'Harcourt, and TerueFs Bishop Anselmo
Polanco.
The enraged rebels brought up everything they had
for the repossession of Teruel. German and Italian forces
with tanks and big guns, plus strong air forces, joined in
the counterattack. The Republican force held them off
with high courage. The counterattack was at full height
when I arrived to report on the battle's progress. On the way
there I visited Colonel Hernandez Sarabia, who had planned
the attack and now directed the defense from his head-
quarters, an old restaurant-car in a tunnel. While some
British members of Parliament and I dined with him there,
he was in constant telephone communication with Teruel.
The Republicans held on until February 22, exactly two
months, when superior forces at length obliged them to re-
treat.
The loss of Teruel did not improve the civilian morale.
It was somewhat reanimated with the news, on March 6,
that three Republican destroyers had attacked a rebel fleet
Two Years of War End in Defeat 125
and sunk the cruiser Baleares. British destroyers rescued
four hundred of its crew. More than that perished. The
Baleares had been accompanied by the cruisers Alrniranie
Cervera and Canarias. These and a new cruiser, the Na-
varra y now remained In rebel hands. The government had
two cruisers, the Cervantes and the Mendez Nunez? plus
twelve destroyers, six torpedo boats and five submarines.
The rebels had obtained four submarines from their Axis
allies.
The Agony of Barcelona
After the beginning of January, 1938, the aerial at-
tacks on Barcelona became heavier and heavier. Perhaps
as many as two thousand persons were killed In a series of
raids that culminated in the terrible mass murders by Ital-
ian planes on March 16 to 18. The bombings, which began
on the night of March 16, lasted all through the day on the
Thursday and Friday that followed. Thursday was the
worst. The planes came from Majorca in wave upon wave,
nine to fifteen at a time in a regular procession, dropping
their explosives in the poorer and congested parts of the
city on the humble and miserable. The upper parts of
the city, with their fine buildings of which so many belonged
to rebel followers, were spared; likewise the area around the
cathedral, and the beautiful Gothic Generalltat palace which
doubtless the rebels hoped to possess. Close to these was an-
other congested area which the bombers struck with calcu-
lated nicety.
It was obvious that the areas of attack were carefully
mapped. Back and forth over these areas they swept, blow-
ing buildings and human beings high into the air in mingled
black columns of nibble, dust, smoke and human particles-
Thousands upon thousands of people swarmed out of their
hovels like ants out of an anthill which was being destroyed..
With a few belongings seized at random, men, women and
children, stricken with panic and fear, streamed through the
wider streets of the new part of the city making their
226 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure^
to the hills. It was the first time during the war that I
really saw fear on the faces of Spaniards. They were capable
of enduring much. But here was something new in Spanish
experience, something too terrible to be taken with stoicism.
In the Stoic philosophy, things that is, external events do
not touch the soul. But this touched the soul.
The day after the bombings Saturday the govern-
ment sanitation service gave me figures of more than a thou-
sand bodies recovered for the two days with many still
buried in the ruins.
While the March bombardments were in progress the
rebel forces, mainly Italian divisions, were massed for a
triple push into Republican territory. One drive was from
the ancient former Aragon capital of Huesca into Catalonia;
another was widening the avenue from the interior toward
Teruel, which could thereafter lead down to the Mediter-
ranean and so cut Republican territory in two near Valen-
cia. But the most formidable drive was centered at Sara-
gossa, between these two. One of its spearheads veered off
toward Lerida, capital of the most northerly Catalan prov-
ince. The other aimed straight at the very ancient Catalan
city of Tortosa, near the mouth of the Ebro, and followed
the line of that river. Four Italian divisions, in two of
which some Spaniards were intermingled, were engaged in
this central push toward the sea. They numbered sixty
thousand men, all in good form, for they had not taken part
in any recent major engagement. And they were hurling
themselves against the wearied veterans of Teruel, many
without arms of any kind. So much materiel lost in the
retreat from Teruel scarcely two weeks ago had not been
replaced.
Barcelona watched the drives with anxiety. There was
gravest danger of the sea being reached in two places in a
pincers movement. Barcelona would be cut off from Valen-
cia, while Valencia would be cut off from Madrid by an-
other series of operations between those two cities. When
the Italian bombers based on Majorca thought it time to
cut short their ghastly experiments on the Barcelona popu-
Two Years of War End in Defeat 227
lace, they turned their attention to bombing the Republican,
forces along the coast, particularly Tortosa, which was
strafed day and night. I had often tarried at Tortosa on
my drives back and forth from Valencia. I wondered now
about the fate of its excellent middle-class Hotel Paris where,
even in the early part o the war, I was sewed eight- and
nine-course dinners.
The column that was heading for L6rida from Saragossa
plowed through to within a few miles of that city in a hurry.
How different it looked at the beginning of April when I
entered the city. It was a city completely deserted except
for the defenders, who had their headquarters in a long
cellar of a building facing the river. There were also some
observers in the top floors. But now this picturesque city
which I knew well, and which was already old when it
withstood the brunt of Caesar's assaults, was a city of
vacant streets, forlorn empty buildings, gaping store fronts
stripped of their merchandise. From a distance of some miles
enemy artillery was striking at the several bridges across the
Segre and at the headquarters building* As their shells burst
in the river they sent up columns of water; otherwise they
went wide of the mark.
In the cellar I mingled with the unshaven militiamen,
chatted with the commander, El Campesino the Peasant
and was entertained by a gipsy soldier who also danced,
sang flamenco and played a guitar, and who spoke excellent
English. He was the commander's aide, and told me he used
to work in a night club in New York.
El Campesino was a typical guerrillero, a natural-born
soldier without formal education, such as one frequently
found in Spanish history. His real name was Valentin Gon-
zales, but the Spaniards, with their fondness for nicknames,
called him "The Peasant." Such a one also had been El
Empecinado The Stubbornheaded of the Peninsular War
against the French invaders. His real name was Juan Martin,
Lerida finally fell on April 3, a few days after my visit.
Several days later the rebels captured Balaguer, which
overlooks the Segre from a high bluff. And on April 8 they
2^8 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
took Tremp in the mountains to the north. This was serious,
for here were the main sources of electrical current for
Barcelona and most of Catalonia. Barcelona's electricity
supply was cut off. Old power stations in the center of the
city were impressed into service. Ordinary household service
was stopped except for dim lights during the dark hours of
night. There were no more elevators. The production of
arms was slowed down.
When the rebels took Vinaroz by the sea, on April 15,
1938, they achieved their objective of slicing Spain in two.
So Barcelona was cut off from Valencia. That valiant city's
defenders now followed in the footsteps of the Cid. The
rebels had also taken Tortosa and were turning their atten-
tion toward Valencia. They had to fight their way step by
step and were held off weeks after Barcelona was taken. This
of course foreshadowed the end. Yet the government kept
up a brave countenance. On April 16 Prime Minister Juan
Negrin bade the country to have the courage to face the
hard truth.
In a message to the country he said:
"Spaniards: The government in obedience to its moral
doctrine not to hide the truth, however bitter it may be,
addresses the country and informs it that, by a drastic push,
the invaders who are destroying our fatherland, Italians,
Moors and Germans, have succeeded in reaching the Medi-
terranean/'
In a long radio address he told about the government's
position on the various fronts; told his hearers that hope was
not lost, summoned them to greater efforts. "With faith in
victory/* he announced, "with enthusiasm and discipline,
we shall free the lands which have just been taken from us
by the invaders in the space of some days or weeks, and open
the path of the rest of Spain to our army, the Army of
Independence/'
It was in this spirit that the Republican forces fought
on. They fought on through the summer and into the fall.
On July 25 came the news that the Republican forces had
Two Years of War End in Defeat 229
crossed the Ebro into Aragon and pushed the enemy back.
They had taken a forty-mile-long stretch of the river's right
bank and a spearhead to Gandesa, twenty-five miles from the
river. This drive had been engineered by another of these
natural-born warriors, Colonel Enrique Lister. He was
famed as a gourmet, in addition to his warrior talents. I had
good proof of this when I was temporarily his guest at his
headquarters tent when I went up to take stock of the con-
tinuous battle. The troops in this area were comfortable
behind the protection of the sharp irregular combs of rocky
crags that stretched spine-like through the area. Invisible
from the air, they could laugh at the efforts of the enemy
planes which came in relays dropping their bombs which al-
ways hit wide of their marks. The greatest danger was
from the flying shell fragments of the Republican anti-air-
craft guns which shot at the raiders.
While the battle of the Ebro went on, during the four
months from July to November, Negrin pressed his peace
bid to the enemy. As early as April he had embodied this
bid in his thirteen points, which were:
(1) The absolute independence and integrity of Spain,
including its islands and possessions.
(2) The liberation of Spanish territory from foreign
military occupation.
(3) A popular Republic and a vigorous state.
(4) A plebiscite after the war, under full guarantee
and without limitations.
(5) Respect for regional liberties, compatible with
Spanish unity.
(6) Full social and civil rights for citizens, liberty of
conscience and free exercise of religion.
(7) Protection of property and of the producing^ ele-
ments; prevention of such accumulations of wealth as*might
result in the exploitation of citizens; a centralizing role for
the state in economic and social life; special concern for the
small proprietors; respect for foreign property and compen-.
sation for foreign losses.
23 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
(8) Profound agrarian reform.
(9) Advanced social legislation guaranteeing the rights
of workers.
(10) The cultural, physical and moral improvement of
the race.
(n) A non-political army as an instrument for the de-
fense of the people.
(12) Renunciation of war as an instrument of national
policy; fidelity to the Covenant of the League of Nations; a
place in the concert of powers for Spain as a Mediterranean
nation.
(13) An ample amnesty for all Spaniards who desire to
cooperate in the work of reconstruction; renunciation of
vengeance and reprisal.
These thirteen points stood no chance against the
twenty-seven points of the Falange, with their concept of
"the state as a totalitarian instrument/' "Why fight at all
if you had to renounce vengeance and reprisal?" Such was
the vein of the enemy's taunting refusal to talk the language
of peace.
The government, in accordance with its peace proposals,
had decreed that foreigners should be eliminated. The battle
of the Ebro was fought in the last months entirely by
Spaniards, on the Republican side but not so on the other.
The Republicans fought on during four months. They were
pushed back little by little. On the night of November
14-15 they were forced to make a final retreat. At Valencia,
in Madrid, the Republic's defenders fought on. Gallant
Madrid, the first to take up the challenge, would be the last
to reconcile itself to its fate.
The rebels' drive toward Barcelona began just before
Christmas Eve. As usual Italian troops were in the vanguard-
Altogether 200,000 well-equipped soldiers, plus about five
hundred Italian and German big guns, with tanks, machine
guns, armored equipment, incendiary bombs, were in mo-
tion. What chance had the Republican soldiers, bedraggled
and weary, with scant equipment, much of it worn out by the
Two Years of War End in Defeat 231
recent hard fighting that ended In the retreat from the right
bank of the Ebro?
General Lister, who so recently had commanded the
Ebro front, and his Fifth Army did valiant work in stopping
the gaps against which the Italian cohorts were pounding.
From Lerida the enemy pushed down toward Borjas Blancas
and Montblanch on a route that led through nut orchards
and rich fields to Barcelona. The populations had fled from
the towns.
Borjas Blancas was the birthplace and home o the
Catalan patriot, the late Colonel Francesc Mada. He was
the man whom the military cliques hated most because he
had deserted their ranks to fight with the people for Catalan
liberties. He had died in 1934. But his death had not soft-
ened their hearts. Shortly after his death his tomb had been
desecrated by some of the haters. Now they desecrated the
city he had loved from his childhood. For no military reason
they had bombed Borjas Blancas again and again until
scarcely a stone was left upon stone.
The Republic's Last Stand
Pushing along the line of the railway that ran down
from Lerida, through Montblanch and on to the coast, the
rebel hordes reached Catalonia's second largest city, Tarra-
gona, on January 15, twenty-three days after the big push
had started on December 23. At Barcelona the government
was already preparing to leave; they hoped to make a stand
at Gerona. The great exodus of refugees toward the French
border was forming. Inside the city the fifth column was
already rearing Its head, showing its teeth. The populace was
demoralized. In a desperate effort the government an-
nounced conscription of all men up to the age of fifty-five.
When the men responded, there were no arms for them and
no food. They merely clogged up the defense and the at-
tempt at orderly retreat.
On January 26, 1939, the doors and shutters of Barce-
$$2 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
lona's houses were closed while its streets were deserted. The
constituted authorities had already retreated. About midday
soldiers wearing the uniforms of the Spanish military con-
spirators, one by one and at separated distances, filtered into
the outskirts of the city, into the outlying streets and in the
direction of Pedralbes where stood the great military bar-
racks from which rebellion in Barcelona had first issued on
that July 19 of evil memory. They had also spread down
into Saria, to the workers' suburb of Sans, to Can Tunez
on the flats by the sea at the foot of Montjuich.
The soldiers gripped hand grenades tightly and their
eyes roved on a ceaseless alert. There were no pedestrians
except for the occasional one whom chance unwittingly
lured forth. Every such wayfarer on nearing the soldiers im-
mediately threw up his hands and cried "Arriba Espana!"
" Arise Spain!" The defiant clenched-fist salute of the Re-
public's defenders was no more.
Behind the thin advance files came other deployed scouts
fondling steely spheroids of death; after them came soldiers
moving more closely. Behind them, more and more densely
moved tanks, machine guns, artillery, horsemen. Soon the
victorious military conspirators were pouring into the city
in full panoply of war. Their officers were braver now, for
there were no armed citizens, or no determined populace
bearing merely sticks and staves, to forbid them to pass. Soon
this cavalcade was passing along the Gran Via, the Diagonal,
down toward the heart of the city by the Paseo de Gracia,
converging on the Pla<:a de Catalunya where one of the great
battles of that July 19 had been fought.
At the age of seven years, nine months and twelve
days sentence of death was pronounced on the infant Re-
public which had been hailed in these streets with such
jubilation. Its doom was pronounced but yet it fought on.
The government's hope of making a stand at Gerona
went the way of lost hopes. Those hopes had been blasted
by the cynical attitudes of Chamberlain's government and of
the government of France. Things had changed much in
France since the days of the Popular Front. The spirit of
'Two Years of War End in Defeat 233
fascism already pervaded high places in the French govern-
ment; there was obvious collaboration between some of its
men Pierre Laval, for example and the Nazis. The
plague of Petainism was spreading. Wherefore the French
government and the government in London although cer-
tainly not the British people stood with folded arms while
a neighboring Republic entered its agony. In London,
Chamberlain sneered at the plight of the Republican govern-
ment. He and his set had established a near-totalitarianism
which seemed bent on paralyzing Parliament itself. He
refused to take Parliament into his confidence; recently he
had refused the pleas of the opposition to call it together
in an emergency. Already he had consummated the betrayal
of Munich, had announced the attainment of "peace in our
time/* England was nearer fascism in those days than it will
be ever again. Chamberlaimsm taught it a lesson its people
will hardly forget.
On February i the Republican parliament assembled for
the last time in Spain. The scene of its meeting was in the
underground dungeons of the old fortress of Figueras which
guarded the approaches from France. It was a medieval
stronghold which had performed its last services 130 years
previously at the time of the Napoleonic invasion. Since that
time it had become a mammoth museum piece to which old
memories clung. Here was one memory more to be passed
on to posterity.
Before the sixty-two deputies, out of the Gortes's 473,
Negrin made a last feeler for peace, based on the three pri-
mary conditions of his thirteen points, namely, independence
of Spanish territory, the right of the people to decide their
own destiny, an end to reprisals and vengeance and blood-
shed. All knew of course how hopeless was the gesture. The
next day the rebels answered by furiously bombing the city,
bombing the fleeing women and children, leaving death by
the wayside.
In the fastness of the mountains some of the infuriated
refugees retaliated by killing certain of the most significant
prisoners whom the government was taking to France in
234 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
an effort to save them. Among them was Bishop Anselmo
Polanco of Teruel, and Lieutenant-Colonel Rey d'Harcourt,
who had been that town's rebel commander. 1 believe that
any sane person must pray that God will never permit him
to be in the frame of mind of the persons who did these
terrible deeds.
The great stream of refugees now surging toward France,
and pressing against the bars of the bridge at the gateway
of Perthus on which one stepped into France, was close to
half a million. A conservative estimate would perhaps be
400,000. I, like many another, hoped never again to behold
such a spectacle.
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.
Chaos more fearful than in the war's beginning was master
once more.
In Madrid, in Valencia, in Alicante the Republic fought
on. Negrin flew to Madrid to rally the forces; a rump gov-
ernment was formed which said, "It's time to surrender/'
The army said, "No!" And so there was internal strife. The
Negrin government held the fort at Madrid a full month,
until March 5. Then the rump government staged a golpe
and seized power. It was headed by General Jose Miaja, a
brave man who had loyally waged the defense of Madrid
all during the war. Both sides have been criticized severely.
Each thought it was doing the right thing. The people of
Madrid were more than half starved. To those who courted
surrender it did not seem that the war could go on any
longer.
The resisters felt that by holding out they could protect
the escape from Madrid of thousands who would otherwise
fall victims of Franco's reprisals. The rump government did
not agree. Among other things they raised the cry that the
plan to resist was a cover for establishing a central Com-
munist zone. An appraisal of the facts scarcely bears out
this contention for Negrin was no Communist. He had
Two Years of War End in Defeat 235
brought with him three o the army's most able leaders who
happened also to be Communists. One of them, Lister, we
have already seen in action on the Ebro and but recently
in the attempt to stem the attack on Barcelona. They were
the three ablest fighters Negrin could have picked to or-
ganize the resistance. That is all there was to it. However,
the majority of Madrid's population seemed to be on the side
of the ramp government.
The Miaja junta sent a peace delegate to Franco asking
for terms of surrender. There were none. Two other names,
beside that of General Miaja, have often been mentioned
from among those who composed the junta: Colonel Segis-
mundo Casado and Professor Julian Besteiro, a quite schol-
arly man. There were four others. Each of the seven as-
sumed the title of a cabinet minister, holding such port-
folios as Prime Minister, Defense, Foreign Affairs, Justice,
and so on. It was a pitiful mummery a cabinet of the
doomed, born out of despair.
The junta ordered the arrest of Negrin and other Re-
publican ministers with him, as well as the generals who had
come to lead the resistance. Negrin and his company es-
caped by plane to the coast. Doubtless many others also
escaped, but their flight does not stand in the record.
Franco followed up his demand for Madrid's surrender
with a threat of bombardment. The surrender without
terms or promise of mercy was signaled, and on March 29,
two months and three days after Barcelona's collapse, Ma-
drid's heroic defense ended. On March 29 Franco's troops
entered the city; on that day they repeated the performance
they had given in Barcelona on January 26.
Valencia, Alicante and some neighboring towns had held
out up to now. But they too had come to the end of the
trail. When stouthearted Valencia, which lived in the Gid's
great tradition of the indomitable soul, gave up the fight,
the Republic's last agony was ended. On April i the Repub-
lic was dead.
Two days after Madrid's surrender, Spain's Enano
Sangriento Bloody Dwarf as Spaniards had already begun
236 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
calling Franco, raised the banner o the triumph of inter-
national fascism. Fascism had made an important new ad-
vance in the process of strangling France and so also squeez-
ing the breath of freedom out of Europe.
On April i Pope Pius XII sent the following telegram
to Franco: "Lifting up our hearts to the Lord, we give
sincere thanks with your excellency for Spain's desired
Catholic victory. We express our hope that your most be-
loved country, with peace attained, may undertake with new
vigor the ancient Christian traditions which made her great.
With affectionate sentiments we send your excellency and the
most noble Spanish people Our Apostolic blessing/*
All Europe flamed in war within another eight months.
The consequences have been more devastating and terrible
than mind can conceive. The war that started in Spain on
July, 1936, was not finished.
Azana's Last Interview
The Republican government continued its life as the
Spanish Constitutional Government in Exile. President
Azana however did not go along with it, but handed in his
resignation on March i. For this he was much criticized by
his own former colleagues. But Don Manuel was the one
type of Spaniard whom Miguel de Cervantes had never en-
countered. He had nothing in him of the mad knight errant.
He would never fight a windmill or call a humble inn a
castle. He lived in terms of reality in fact was one of the
most thoroughgoing realists I had ever met. Time and again
I had been struck by his remarkable flair for putting his
finger on the realities and pointing to their inevitable con-
sequences. This strong sense of reality again revealed itself
in a talk I had with him after his resignation.
It was the last interview he ever gave and it has never
been published, for at the time he enjoined me to secrecy
because, as an exile, he did not wish to make political state-
ments. He and members of his family had taken up resi-
dence in a commodious chalet not far from Geneva, Chal-
Two Years of War End in Defeat 2^7
longes. Thither I journeyed from Switzerland to see him,
at his invitation. His face was pasty and pale and I could
see that he was not a well man. He died within a matter of
months afterward.
I wanted to learn what actually happened on the night
of July 17, 1936, which was the night the military rebellion
was coming to a head. Could it yet have been averted by
conciliatory action on the part of the Republican govern-
ment? Had President Azafia made pacifying gestures? Were
the negotiations wrecked by the imprudent action of one of
his ministers? One heard so many stories of what happened
that night, and I wanted the truth. The one thing every-
body knew was that the government had formed a con-
ciliatory cabinet with the moderate Diego Martinez Barrio
as Prime Minister, that it took office for a few hours, and
that it did not succeed. Now I learned that President Azana,
the realist, never expected that it would but he deemed it
his duty to try.
"I summoned Sefior Martinez Barrio," Azana told me,
"and with him tried to form a national government includ-
ing the rightist parties the agrarians, the monarchists, the
conservative Republicans of Miguel Maura, and also the
Socialists, along with the regular Republican groups. No
one wanted it. Maura wouldn't serve with the Socialists, and
the Socialists wouldn't serve with Maura's group.
"The people were in the streets, and that meant the
conflict had already gained headway. It was impossible to
avert the war. If the military had stopped and gone along
with us, the landed proprietors would have gone on also.
I tried to make them see that no party was worth what
would happen. But everybody wanted to kill. There are
times when Spaniards are that way. Nothing can stop them.
After the uprising there were ten courts-martial in Madrid
and they killed ten Spanish generals. They are still killing
after the war.
"The war came. Even though in the first days there was
victory in Madrid, Barcelona and other large cities, I fore-
saw the outcome. The forces against us were powerful and I
238 Second Republic: Gallant Adventure
knew they would win in the end. But as President of the
Republic it was my obligation to remain in Spain at the
head of the government. There was nothing to do but fight
on.
"Before the w r ar I had known that Fascist intrigue was
rampant in Spain, But it was not supposed that it was so
widespread as actually it was. When the Fascist powers
Italy and Germany began sending their airplanes and
ground forces in ever increasing numbers, the outlook indeed
began to look dark. When the democracies turned cold
shoulders on us, the black situation seemed almost hopeless.
Still we fought on and hoped, for as we Spaniards have a
way of saying, one never knows what changes may come
with the morrow."
Senor Azana indeed stayed on to the end, performing
his functions, addressing appeals to the democracies, en-
couraging his government and hoping against hope with the
rest.
Another point I wished to clear up was whether one of
his ministers, Casares Quiroga, on the night of the lyth, had
spoiled all chance of reconciliation by passing out arms to
the people. Azana was widely pictured as having told
Quiroga in anger: "Me has matado!" "You have killed
mei" Azana told me there was no truth in the story, because
the situation was, as he stated, that none of the forces bent
on rebellion would listen to reason.
Azana the realist turned his eye to the future which he
saw with a prophetic clairvoyance. "The military will be
uppermost in the years that will follow. They and the Fa-
lange will not get along very well. I doubt that the Falange
will last. The peope don't understand this fascist-type
agrupacion it is something foreign to them/' (The Falange
indeed became the most unpopular institution in Spain;
corruption, graft and a top-heavy bureaucracy are the means
by which it props itself up.)
"The military, with the church, will be uppermost and
have a good chance of holding on for a number of years
because the people are more accustomed to that kind of com-
Two Years of War End in Defeat 239
bination. The generals and the bishops are again In the
saddle Spain has gone back one hundred years.
*'Yes, in Spain everybody wants to kill, and to kill/' he
said sadly, reverting to an earlier theme. "The foreign press
was very voluble in reporting atrocities that were committed
on the Republican side. But now we hear nothing of the
bloodshed that goes on after the war. Everywhere the victors
are killing their Republican enemies; on every hand there
are terrible atrocities and we hear nothing about them/*
"Everywhere they are still killing!" These words rang in
my ears as I continued an unexpectedly perilous night
journey through the Alps to Lyons. I kept thinking of the
words of the old woman in the cottage near Perpignan:
"Monsieur, the end is not yetl"
Part Five TRANSITION
1 6 The Civil War's Aftermath
Spain now entered a period of transition, the sixth phase
in its struggle over a span o two thousand years. Inter-
national fascism had triumphed. The Rome-Berlin Axis had
been enlarged to extend to Madrid. This, in the interna-
tional order, was the real meaning of the Republic's defeat.
In the internal order it meant the liquidation of all
that was liberal; the turning back of history's pages for at
least a hundred years. The liquidation of liberalism was
what Franco and the Falange called "the glorious move-
ment/* Here is the way Franco himself envisaged the future
panorama of Spain under the "glorious movement/ 7 as he
expounded it on December 8, 1942, before the Falange
National Council, at a time when the balance of World War
II still seemed to favor the Axis:
We are the actors in a new era in which we can have no truck
with the mentality of the past ... It is necessary for Spaniards to
abandon old liberal prejudices. . . . The liberal world is going down,
a victim to its own errors. . . . Mussolini merged his own heart into-
the synthesis of the Fascist revolution. . . . Later Germany found a
new solution for the popular yearnings in National Socialism which
unites the national social ideal for the second time in Europe with
the special peculiarities of race thinking for international justice.
The German and Italian and Spanish revolutions are phases of
the same general movement of rebellion of the civilized masses of
the world against the hypocrisy and inefficiency of the old system. . .
Liberalism succumbed to its impetus. Empty slogans and vacillations
were thrown overboard and the task attacked in a revolutionary man-
ner.
Thus spoke Franco when the Axis seemed to be rising
to world power. He used a different tune when it was sunk
240
The Civil War's Aftermath 241
in disaster. Spain his Spain, that Is had never subscribed
to the political views of Hitler, he 
