Francisco Franco
Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. This period in Spanish history, from the Nationalist victory to Franco's death, is commonly known as Francoist Spain.
Born in Ferrol, Galicia, into an upper-class military family, Franco served in the Spanish Army as a cadet in the Toledo Infantry Academy from 1907 to 1910. While serving in Morocco, he rose through the ranks to become a brigadier general in 1926 at age 33. Two years later, Franco became the director of the General Military Academy in Zaragoza. As a conservative and monarchist, Franco regretted the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Second Republic in 1931, and was devastated by the closing of his academy; nevertheless, he continued his service in the Republican Army. His career was boosted after the right-wing CEDA and PRR won the 1933 election, empowering him to lead the suppression of the 1934 uprising in Asturias. Franco was briefly elevated to Chief of Army Staff before the 1936 election moved the leftist Popular Front into power, relegating him to the Canary Islands.
He joined the July 1936 military coup, which, after failing to take Spain, sparked the Spanish Civil War. He commanded Spain's African colonial army and later, following the deaths of much of the rebel leadership, became his faction's only leader, being appointed generalissimo and head of state in 1936. He became recognised as a fascist leader while receiving support from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. He consolidated all Nationalist groups into the FET y de las JONS, and developed a cult of personality around his rule by founding the Movimiento Nacional. Three years later the Nationalists declared victory, which extended Franco's rule over Spain through a period of repression of political opponents. His government's use of forced labour, concentration camps and executions after the war led to at least 30,000 deaths, with some estimates exceeding 200,000. Combined with wartime killings, this brings the death toll of the White Terror to between 100,000 and 350,000 or more. During World War II, he maintained Spanish neutrality, but supported the Axis powers, damaging the country's international reputation.
During the start of the Cold War, Franco lifted Spain out of its mid-20th century economic depression through technocratic and economically liberal policies, presiding over a period of accelerated growth known as the "Spanish miracle". At the same time, his regime transitioned from a totalitarian state to an authoritarian one with limited pluralism. He became a leader in the anti-communist movement, garnering support from the West, particularly the United States. As the government relaxed its hard-line policies, Luis Carrero Blanco became Franco's éminence grise, whose role expanded after Franco began struggling with Parkinson's disease in the 1960s. In 1973, Franco resigned as prime minister—separated from the office of head of state since 1967—due to his advanced age and illness. Nevertheless, he remained in power as the head of state and as commander-in-chief. Franco died in 1975, aged 82, and was entombed in the Valley of the Fallen. He restored the monarchy in his final years, being succeeded by King Juan Carlos, who led the Spanish transition to democracy.
The [|legacy of Franco in Spanish history] remains controversial, as the nature of his rule changed over time. His reign was marked by both brutal repression, with tens of thousands killed, and economic prosperity, which greatly improved the quality of life in Spain. His style proved adaptable enough to allow social and economic reform, but still centred on highly centralised government, authoritarianism, nationalism, national Catholicism, anti-freemasonry and anti-communism. The contemporaries regarded Franco as a fascist dictator; among scholars, there has been a long-lasting debate whether it is adequate to define Franco's regime as fascist. It has been described in broad definitions, from a traditional military dictatorship to a fascistised yet not fascist or a fully fascist regime.
Early life
Francisco Franco Bahamonde was born on 4 December 1892 in the Calle Frutos Saavedra in Ferrol, Galicia, into a seafaring family. He was baptised thirteen days later at the military church of San Francisco, with the baptismal name Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo.After relocating to Galicia, the Franco family was involved in the Spanish Navy, and over the span of two centuries produced naval officers for six uninterrupted generations, down to Franco's father .
His mother, , was from an upper-middle-class Roman Catholic family. Her father, Ladislao Bahamonde Ortega, was the commissar of naval equipment at the Port of El Ferrol. Franco's parents married in 1890 in the Church of San Francisco in El Ferrol. The young Franco spent much of his childhood with his two brothers, Nicolás and Ramón, and his two sisters, María del Pilar and María de la Paz. His brother Nicolás was a naval officer and diplomat who married María Isabel Pascual del Pobil. Ramón was an internationally known aviator, a military man like his other two brothers, and a Freemason, originally with leftist political leanings. He was also the second sibling to die, killed in an air accident on a military mission in 1938.
Franco's father was a naval officer who reached the rank of vice admiral. When Franco was fourteen, his father moved to Madrid following a reassignment and ultimately abandoned his family, marrying another woman. While Franco did not suffer any great abuse by his father's hand, he never overcame his antipathy for his father and largely ignored him for the rest of his life. Years after becoming leader, under the pseudonym Jaime de Andrade, Franco wrote a brief novel called Raza, whose protagonist is believed by Stanley Payne to represent the idealised man Franco wished his father had been. Conversely, Franco strongly identified with his mother and learned from her moderation, austerity, self-control, family solidarity and respect for Catholicism, though he would also inherit his father's harshness, coldness and implacability.
Military career
Rif War and advancement through the ranks
Francisco would have followed his father into the Navy, but as a result of the Spanish–American War the country lost much of its navy as well as most of its colonies. Not needing any more officers, the Naval Academy admitted no new entrants from 1906 to 1913. To his father's chagrin, Francisco decided to try the Spanish Army. In 1907, he entered the Infantry Academy in Toledo. At the age of fourteen, Franco was one of the youngest members of his class, with most boys being between sixteen and eighteen. He was short and was bullied for his small size. His grades were average; though his good memory meant he seldom struggled academically, his small stature was a hindrance in physical tests. He graduated in July 1910 as a second lieutenant, standing 251st out of 312 cadets in his class, though this might have had less to do with his grades than with his small size and young age. Stanley Payne observes that by the time civil war began, Franco had already become a major general and would soon be a generalissimo, while none of his higher-ranking fellow cadets had managed to get beyond the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Franco was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant in June 1912 at age 19. Two years later, he obtained a commission to Morocco. Spanish efforts to occupy the new African protectorate provoked the Second Melillan campaign in 1909 against native Moroccans, the first of several Riffian rebellions. Their tactics resulted in heavy losses among Spanish military officers, and also provided an opportunity to earn promotion through merit on the battlefield. It was said that officers would receive either la caja o la faja. Franco quickly gained a reputation as an effective officer. In 1913, Franco transferred into the newly formed regulares: Moroccan colonial troops with Spanish officers, who acted as elite shock troops. In 1916, aged 23 with the rank of captain, Franco was shot in the abdomen by guerrilla gunfire during an assault on Moroccan positions at El Biutz, in the hills near Ceuta; this was the only time he was wounded in ten years of fighting. The wound was serious, and he was not expected to live. His recovery was seen by his Moroccan troops as a spiritual event – they believed Franco to be blessed with baraka or protected by God. He was recommended for promotion to major and to receive Spain's highest honour for gallantry, the coveted Cruz Laureada de San Fernando. Both proposals were denied, with the 23-year-old Franco's young age being given as the reason for denial. Franco appealed the decision to the king, who reversed it. Franco also received the Cross of Maria Cristina, First Class.With that he was promoted to major at the end of February 1917 at age 24. This made him the youngest major in the Spanish army. From 1917 to 1920, he served in Spain. In 1920, Lieutenant Colonel José Millán Astray, a histrionic but charismatic officer, founded the Spanish Foreign Legion, along similar lines as the French Foreign Legion. Franco became the Legion's second-in-command and returned to Africa. In the Rif War, the poorly commanded and overextended Spanish Army was defeated by the Republic of the Rif under the leadership of the Abd el-Krim brothers, who crushed a Spanish offensive on 24 July 1921, at Annual. The Legion and supporting units relieved the Spanish city of Melilla after a three-day forced march led by Franco. In 1923, now a lieutenant colonel, he was made commander of the Legion.
On 22 October 1923, Franco married María del Carmen Polo y Martínez-Valdès. Following his honeymoon Franco was summoned to Madrid to be presented to King Alfonso XIII. This and other occasions of royal attention would mark him during the Republic as a monarchical officer.
Disappointed with the plans by Lieutenant General Miguel Primo de Rivera, Spain's Prime Minister, for a strategic retreat from the interior to the African coastline, Colonel Franco wrote in the April 1924 issue of Revista de Tropas Coloniales that he would disobey orders of retreat given by a superior. As a result, Franco had a tense meeting with Primo de Rivera in July.
Lieutenant Colonel Franco visited a fellow africanista, General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, on 21 September 1924 to propose that Queip de Llano organise a coup d'état against Primo. In the end, Franco complied with General Primo's orders, taking part in the retreat of Spanish soldiers from Xaouen in late 1924, and thus earning a promotion to colonel.
Franco led the first wave of troops ashore at Al Hoceima in 1925. This landing in the heartland of Abd el-Krim's tribe, combined with the French invasion from the south, spelled the beginning of the end for the short-lived Republic of the Rif. Franco was promoted to brigadier general on 3 February 1926, said to be the youngest general in Europe. On 14 September 1926, Franco and Polo had a daughter, María del Carmen. Franco would have a close relationship with his daughter and was a proud parent, though his traditionalist attitudes and increasing responsibilities meant he left much of the child-rearing to his wife. In 1928 Franco was appointed director of the newly created General Military Academy of Zaragoza, a new college for all Spanish army cadets, replacing the former separate institutions for young men seeking to become officers in infantry, cavalry, artillery, and other branches of the army. Franco was removed as Director of the Zaragoza Military Academy in 1931; when the Civil War began, the colonels, majors, and captains of the Spanish Army who had attended the academy when he was its director displayed unconditional loyalty to him as Caudillo.