I went on a bit of a trip yesterday. The title of the event translates as something like From the Vinalopó to Exile. Vinalopó is the name of our mighty local river which trickles into the sea at Santa Pola and which gives its name to the area. The theme was the end of the Spanish Civil War.We were shown things in Petrer and Elda but the bit I liked best, apart from eating, was going down the air raid shelters in Hondón. Hondón is a very small village just 9 km from Culebrón. Not the most obvious place for an air raid shelter dug 40 metres into the ground and with space for 250 people.
So it's March 1939, right at the end of the Spanish Civil War (The result of an army rebellion in 1936 against the elected Leftist Republican Government) the Republic is in tatters. The President, Azaña, reckons the only chance is to hang on long enough for the Nazis to start the Second World War so that the French and British may stop looking the other way and come to his aid. Then Republican Barcelona falls to the Francoist troops and Azaña runs away, resigns, and never comes back.
With Azaña gone the ex Prime Minister, Negrín, takes over as President. The Republican Government has moved its headquarters to Elda which just 25kms from Culebrón. The main reason is that Elda isn't being bombed non stop though there are other reasons like decent communications and a strong manufacturing base. Meanwhile Madrid is, miraculously, still in Republican hands. It won't fall to the rebellious Francoist troops till right at the end of the war but in Madrid a Republican Army Colonel, Casado, mounts a coup. He and his pals reckon that all is lost and waiting for the French and British is a stupid plan. They want to cut a deal and save their skins. Franco doesn't talk to them. They have nothing to offer.
So it's all gone pear shaped, the elected President has run off, half your army is caught up in some Communist rebellion and it's pretty obvious that you've lost. Negrín decides the jig is up. He's in Elda. The nearest aerodrome (think of a mowed and level grassy area rather than tarmac runways) is in Hondon, or as we now seem to call it el Fondó using its Valenciano name. The big cars drive in from Elda with a famous writer and poet in one, a fiery Communist Party woman orator in another and Negrin himself in a third. They clear off in a couple of aeroplanes along with some pals. Later that night the remnants of the loyal Republican Army command meet with the left over political big wigs and the next days more planes leave taking them away - generally to Oran. Though it may not seem geographically obvious Algeria is less distance than any other safe country especially for a flimsy 1930s plane loaded to capacity.
That's where our tour ended and about three weeks after those planes left the last few Republican cities - Alicante, Cartagena and Almeria - fell.
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If you look at the comments below someone wrote to say that there were a couple of incorrect facts in this piece. One was that Negrín was never President and the other was that Azaña wasn't holding out for an Anglo French "rescue". Have a look at the comments section if you're interested.
Nice piece.. You’ve got some important historic details wrong though. Azaña’s policy never was to resist until France and Britain came to rescue the republic. He hoped for a Franco-British sponsored ceasefire to allow evacuation of Republicans. The policy of resisting until the British and French realized there was no point In appeasing Mussolini and Hitler was Negrin’s. Azaña thought this amounted to a pointless sacrifice of republican lives and doomed to fail given British establishment’s sympathy for Franco and French need to keep Britain on their side. And Negrin never proclaimed himself President. No need for that since as Prime Minister he had full control of policy. The president’s constitutional role was much more limited.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting and it sounds like you know. What I've written here is what we were told by the guides but I suppose the likelihood is that for a non specialist audience they were keeping the story simple. I do remember hearing a programme on the radio about the Casado coup where one of the complaints about Negrin was that he wasn't really a legitimate head of government. I went back to check the Wikipedia articles on Negrín and Azaña in the light of your comments and I found them quite vague. There is in the Negrín section though a paragraph headed Presidente del gobierno (mayo 1937-marzo 1939) and in the text it says "el 17 de mayo de 1937 el presidente de la República Manuel Azaña le nombró presidente del Gobierno" which I found even more confusing. And, in el Fondó, on the stone plaque it says that the President of the II Republic fled from the village so it's the local understanding. I don't seem to be able to upload a photo here but if this link works it should show the plaque in the village https://photos.app.goo.gl/4cSftronGzuLyaRt8
ReplyDeleteThe last days of the Republic are among its more controversial among historians, and among the saddest too. However some facts are clear. Under the Republican constitution the President of the Republic designated the President of the Council of Ministers, who also needed to enjoy a majority at the Cortes. When Azaña resigned the Presidency (a month after leaving Spain and following French and British recognition of Franco's government), Negrin's many Republican opponents who wanted to end the war (basically everyone except the Communist party and some socialist and assorted center-left republicans) said he should resign too since the Cortes couldn't meet and there was no proper President (acting president Martinez del Barrio wisely declined to return to Madrid from Paris). That was among the arguments used by Casado. Negrín, however was always very careful to respect legal process as much as possible under the circumstances. He certainly never proclaimed himself president and insisted in explaining his behaviour to the remnant of the Cortes when they met in Paris and later in Mexico. I'm sure that the plaque in Fondo says the President of the Republic left from there, but that is typical Spanish exaggerated local pride combined with widespread ignorance of our own history.
ReplyDeleteVery clear. I suppose one of the confusions is my use of English terms like President and Prime Minister rather than more accurate designations.
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