Picasso file
The Picasso File is the name given to the report written by General Juan Picasso González, assigned to the Supreme Council of War and Navy, the highest body of military jurisdiction, in relation to the events that took place in the General Command of Melilla in the months of July and August 1921, known as the "Annual Disaster".
The following year, General Picasso presented his conclusions to the Supreme Council of War and Navy in a four hundred page summary. The government presided by the conservative José Sánchez Guerra then decided to take the Picasso File to the Congress of Deputies, where a first Commission of Responsibilities was formed in July 1922. It presented its verdict to the Cortes in November, starting an intense debate. In fact, during that time the File became the most important political problem in the country. In July 1923 a second Commission of Responsibilities was formed but it could not issue any verdict because it was prevented from doing so by Primo de Rivera's coup d'état in September 1923. Primo de Rivera closed the Cortes and the file was dismissed.
The Second Spanish Republic, proclaimed in April 1931, formed a new Commission of Responsibilities which focused on the actions of ex-king Alfonso XIII, who was condemned in absentia for "high treason" in November 1931. The new Cortes which emerged from the elections of November 1933, with a majority of the center and the right, transferred the case to the Supreme Court, but on July 9, 1935, the latter ruled that the case should be dismissed because no more punishable acts were found than those already judged. Regarding the possible political responsibilities, the Supreme Court concluded that the only ones that could be derived would be subject "to the judgment of history, and only demandable by public opinion or through its representative bodies". There ended the judicial course of the Picasso File.
Background
Between the end of July and the beginning of August 1921, the greatest defeat of the Spanish colonial army in the Moroccan Protectorate took place. In what would be known as the "Disaster of Annual", more than 8,000 men died —most of them replacement soldiers— including General Fernandez Silvestre who commanded the troops and who for several years had been a member of the Military Household of King Alfonso XIII. The territory of effective Spanish control in the Protectorate was reduced to Ceuta and Melilla, and to Tétouan and Larache, with which all the advances achieved in the previous campaign, that of 1912-1913, were lost. The victors of Annual, the Republic of the Rif led by Abd el-Krim, seized 20,000 rifles and 200 cannons and took several hundred Spanish prisoners.The commotion caused in Spain by the tragedy was enormous. The government presided over by the conservative Manuel Allendesalazar tried to hide the events by imposing censorship on the press, but these became known and on August 11 he resigned. Alfonso XIII entrusted the old conservative leader Antonio Maura to form a government, who managed to count on the support of the two parties of the time, of the Catalanists of Francesc Cambó, of the reformists of Melquiades Álvarez and even of the Republicans of Alejandro Lerroux. The Socialists did not pronounce themselves. Maura supported the decision taken by Allendesalazar before resigning to appoint General Juan Picasso to prepare a report on the events in Morocco.
An example of the impact caused by the "Annual disaster" was the resounding intervention of the socialist deputy Indalecio Prieto in the Cortes on October 27, 1921. After giving a grotesque account of the war in Morocco, he made direct accusations against King Alfonso XIII, which provoked continuous protests from the majority of the deputies and the intervention of the president of the Chamber in defense of the person "who, because of his prerogative, is here beyond criticism". But Prieto continued: the High Commissioner Dámaso Berenguer had been appointed because of "his great influence on the mood of a certain personality"; General Silvestre had acted the way he did because he had been authorized by the monarch.... And he ended with a sentence that provoked a great tumult: "Those fields of dominion are today fields of death: eight thousand corpses seem to gather around the steps of the throne in demand of justice". In a later speech outside Parliament, Prieto said: "a catastrophe like that of Annual in the peoples that have vitality is liquidated with a revolution that overthrows the cause of it". For all this Prieto was prosecuted.
History
Investigation of the file
After the military collapse, the High Commissioner of Spain in Morocco, General Dámaso Berenguer, requested the Minister of War that a general officer, appointed by him, investigate the events and determine the responsibilities. By Royal Order of August 4, 1921, Luis de Marichalar y Monreal, Viscount of Eza, Minister of War, appointed General Juan Picasso to investigate the events in Melilla itself, with the help of the brigade auditor Juan Martínez de la Vega y Zegrí. However, the disaster proved to be of such magnitude that the Allendesalazar government was forced to resign. In August 1921, King Alfonso XIII commissioned Antonio Maura to form a government, and he appointed Juan de la Cierva as Minister of War.Picasso had already begun his investigations in Melilla, and on August 15 he sent General Berenguer a letter requesting the operational plans that had guided the actions of General Silvestre and his troops. General Berenguer sent the letter to the Minister of War on August 20, requesting instructions in this regard and also stating that he did not consider himself authorized to provide such information as it was a reserved matter. Under pressure from the Minister, a new Royal Order was issued on 24 August, clarifying to General Picasso that the agreements, plans or dispositions of the High Commissioner were outside his investigations, and that he should limit himself to the acts carried out by the chiefs, officers and troops in order to deduce responsibilities in those cases in which military obligations had not been fulfilled.
On August 31, the general expressed his disagreement with the Royal Order in a letter to the minister, arguing that it should be investigated without exempting anyone, including the highest levels of command, since responsibilities could not be reduced to "incidental events, a natural and obligatory consequence of the errors and mistakes of the command". He also offered the possibility of being relieved of his commission to continue his work as Spanish military representative to the League of Nations. The response was positive. An order of September 1 authorized him to examine all military personnel, as it specified that the investigation "would be limited to the events carried out , without any exception".
In Melilla, General Picasso took statements from seventy-nine people, only in relation to Annual. One by one, he wrote "Dead", "Disappeared", "Present" or "Empty" next to the names of the soldiers and officers who were involved in the Disaster. On January 23, 1922, after six months of work, the general returned to Madrid with a bulging file of 2,433 pages. On April 18, 1922, the general delivered the file to the Ministry of War.
While General Picasso was investigating the file, the idea was growing among certain sectors of the country that the case against those responsible for the "disaster of Annual" would lead nowhere. This is attested to by these coplillas by Luis de Tapia published in the newspaper La Libertad on September 6, 1921 with the title Ni caso, and in which an allusion is made to the possible responsibility of the king:
The Socialists also showed their mistrust about the report that General Picasso could prepare and about its political and judicial virtuality. This was expressed by the Socialist deputy Indalecio Prieto: "Whoever wants to learn about what happened in the Melilla area, through this information , will not learn anything . Twenty generations of mice will make their nests in this mountain of paper. This is where all the purging of responsibilities through official investigations will stop". In May 1922 Prieto insisted again: "After the months that have elapsed, there is not even a shadow before the country of the existence of a responsibility, not even a clear intention to walk with a firm and sure step in search of responsibility. Picasso does not exist; Picasso already, on the lips of the Spaniards, is a fiction, an entelechy, in vulgar language, Mr. Minister of War, a hoax". The writer Miguel de Unamuno, a furious anti-Alfonsino, was also skeptical. In a speech at the Ateneo de Madrid in March 1922 he said in reference to the Picasso File that "it will be dissolved under any pretext; I, however, I would be glad if it were discussed I am eager to see what becomes of what I call the "santiagada"".
If in telegrams or cables
you hear that Picasso
is going to find those responsible...
pay no attention...
The mistakes were true;
but in matters of war,
the causes and the dead
are thrown to the ground...
The iron will not be small
if it is to search on high!
If Picasso on the top stings,
he'll be a failure.
Picasso File at the Supreme Council of War and Navy
By Royal Order communicated on April 21, 1922, the Supreme Council of War and Navy received the file, passing it on April 24 to the military prosecutor, José García Moreno, who on June 26 returned it to the Supreme Council, pronouncing to "pass on the proceedings to the gathered, in the Justice Chamber, for having found indications of criminal responsibilities, requesting to ratify all the testimonies and to correct the deficiencies found; to open a file to detail merits and rewards; and to communicate the proceedings to the Ministry of War". Two days later, on June 28, the public prosecutor, Ángel Romanos, sent a letter to the Council identifying himself with the report of the military prosecutor.What General Picasso presented was a summary of some four hundred pages, in which he imputed the Command in the first place, since "with unconsciousness, with incapacity, with dazedness or recklessness it has caused the collapse of the artificial construction of the territory". "The file revealed dramatic facts and actions, some heroic, others cowardly, and underlined the disorganization, incompetence and strategic errors of the command".
At the July 6 meeting, the Supreme Council of War and Navy, presided over by General Francisco Aguilera, decided to prosecute 39 military personnel for negligence or dereliction of duty in Annual, in addition to the 37 officers charged in the Picasso file itself. Among those indicted was General Dámaso Berenguer, High Commissioner of Morocco at the time of the events, whom the Picasso File did not accuse but whose strategy was criticized. Thus, on July 10, the plenary session of the Council agreed to prosecute Berenguer, asking the Senate for the corresponding request given his condition of senator, and for this reason General Berenguer left the position of High Commissioner. In the same order it was agreed not to prosecute any civilian because they did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Council, so the President of the Government Manuel Allendesalazar and the Minister of War Juan de la Cierva were left out of the investigation.