Franco, Francisco

Franco, Francisco 1892-1975

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Spanish general and head of state Francisco Franco may have been the weakest of the fascist dictators to take over a European power during the troubled peace that followed World War I (1914–1918), but once in office, he survived the longest. To be sure, the generalísimo gained control of his country only after a bloody civil war that prefigured the weapons technology, indiscriminant destruction, and mass executions of the world war to come. Yet, Franco’s survival instinct—for himself and for Spain—trumped whatever desire there was for vengeance or glory. During his sometimes violent forty-year reign as head of state, Franco nevertheless demonstrated sufficient tactical flexibility to keep his enemies divided and his country at peace.

Few incidents from Franco’s early career set him apart as a revolutionary. In fact, his rapid ascent in the Spanish army came largely from his willingness and ability to quell dissent. After graduating from the Infantry Academy (Toledo) in 1910, Franco sought action and advancement fighting rebels from 1912 to 1916 in Spanish Morocco, where he was seriously wounded. He recovered in time to lead Spanish Foreign Legion (Legión Extranjera) troops against Abd el-Krim (c. 1882–1963) in the Rif War (1921–1926). Back in Spain—as a young officer in 1917 and later as a fast-rising general in 1934—Franco led army efforts to repress striking workers. Shortly after the latter disturbance in Asturias, the center-right government in Madrid selected Franco as chief of the general staff.

However, as Franco rose in rank, his career tracked with the vicissitudes of the fragile Second Republic. In February 1936, a popular front on the left won close national elections, and Franco soon found himself reassigned outside mainland Spain to the Canary Islands. As violence and political assassinations on the left and right escalated in the summer of 1936, several generals plotted a coup to save Spain from communist and anarchist influences in the government. Within forty-eight hours after the coup was declared on July 17, Franco rejoined his colonials and legionnaires in Morocco and became one of the leading figures in a conservative rebellion. By October 1936, Franco, invading from Morocco, captured the symbolic capital of Toledo. He was selected generalissimo of the Nationalist Army and shortly thereafter head of state for the new Spain.

Between July 1936 and April 1, 1939, the Spanish Civil War was hotly contested with neither side able to dominate militarily. Franco gradually pushed Republican forces into eastern Spain and managed to split them along a corridor to the Mediterranean in 1938, but the great cities of Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia did not begin to fall until the end of January 1939. In the war, Franco stood out not so much for classic generalship but for his capacity to appreciate the mutual dependence of political and military strategy.

While his enemies suffered ideological divisions, Franco was able to unite Monarchists, Falange (Phalanx) elements, rural conservatives, and Catholics behind a single cause: keeping a united Spain out of the hands of leftist Republicans. He justified ruthless tactics, including siege warfare, aerial bombing of civilians, and summary execution, in the name of a holy crusade to save the state. He invited substantial foreign troops and equipment from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to crush democracy while preserving French and British neutrality. Even when they could not be subdued on the ground, Franco’s enemies were outflanked politically.

Pragmatism for the purpose of maintaining stability continued under Franco’s rule. Despite his pro-Axis leanings during World War II (1939–1945), Franco orchestrated a rapprochement with the United States, concluding economic and defense agreements with the Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) administration. Franco subsequently accepted innovations expanding tourism and joint production with foreign companies, which probably contributed to the Spanish Miracle, a long run of robust growth in the 1960s. Late in life, the dictator could not adjust to global waves of democracy and export-led expansion, both of which challenged conventions of state control, but his handpicked successor, Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón, would have more success after transitioning Spain back to constitutional monarchy.

The contrast between Franco’s leading biographer in English, Paul Preston, and revisionist historians such as Pío Moa demonstrates how Franco’s legacy depends on whether Nationalist tactics during and after the civil war are accepted as necessary evils. The generalissimo still rests with honors at the Valley of the Fallen, an enormous shroud of gray stone that covers twenty thousand dead on each side. It stands as a symbol of unbending unity, but it also underscores for both Republican and Nationalist descendants the consequences of abandoning peaceful compromise. Such wide recognition has, in turn, underwritten a democratic constitution that celebrated twenty-five years in 2003 and set the political conditions for transforming economic growth in Spain, which from 1986 routinely outpaced fellow members of the European Union.

SEE ALSO Dictatorship; Spanish Civil War

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Moa, Pío. 2003. Los Mitos de la Guerra Civil. Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros.

Preston, Paul. 1994. Franco: A Biography. New York: Basic Books.

Damon Coletta

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