The Last Days of the Spanish Republic. Paul Preston
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I stood for eighteen hours watching the file of the last forces that were retreating into France. I managed not to lose my head, and simply by dint of doing my duty, it was possible to save those half a million Spaniards who are now awaiting our help.’60
Only after General Rojo had arrived to announce that the final Republican troops in Catalonia had crossed the frontier on the morning of 9 February did Negrín enter France. His most loyal ministers wept. At the Spanish Consulate in Perpignan, an improvised cabinet meeting was held. Negrín announced that he would travel on to Toulouse and from there fly to Spain. Some ministers thought that he was mad, but as he himself later explained: ‘If I hadn’t done that then, today I would die of shame; I probably would not have been able to survive my disgust with myself. Was the Government going to leave those still fighting in the Central zone without leadership or support? Was it the Government of Resistance that would flee and surrender them?’61
Shortly after Negrín had reached Perpignan on Thursday 9 February, an emissary from General Miaja reached the Spanish Consulate. Captain Antonio López Fernández, Miaja’s fiercely anti-Communist secretary, came with the mission of persuading Negrín to remain in France and for President Azaña to grant Miaja permission to negotiate peace with the rebels. Prior to leaving Alicante on the plane for Toulouse, he had telephoned General Rojo, who had asked him to come to the Spanish Embassy in Paris to meet both himself and Azaña on 10 February. On reaching the Consulate in Perpignan late on Thursday evening, Captain López was received by Negrín, Álvarez del Vayo and the Minister of Finance, Francisco Méndez Aspe. He gave them a detailed report on the situation in the central zone, the thrust of which was that there was no possibility of further resistance and that the only possible solution was to entrust Miaja with the task of negotiating surrender on the best terms possible. Negrín listened in silence until López concluded with the words: ‘Prime Minister, at this moment, the Centre-South zone is like an aircraft in flight whose engines have stopped. The salvation of those on board depends on the skill of the pilot. In the view of all the senior officers in the zone, that pilot is General Miaja.’ When Negrín asked what was needed for resistance to continue, López replied: ‘There is no possibility of resisting; there are no weapons, no food, no fuel and our armament is so worn out, with no possibility of replacement or repair, that to oblige the Army to resist is self-evidently senseless and criminal.’ When Álvarez del Vayo pressed him further, López replied that resistance would be possible only if huge deliveries of arms and aircraft could arrive immediately. Negrín told López that he would consider his report and that, the next morning, he and Vayo would go to the central zone and discuss future prospects with Miaja.62
López then went to Paris and had a meeting with Azaña and Generals Rojo and Hernández Saravia and Lieutenant Colonel Enrique Jurado. There he found a more receptive audience for his pessimistic report. He asked Azaña to return to the central zone to oblige Negrín to resign and to give constitutional legitimacy to negotiations with the Francoists. López’s message from Miaja was as hopelessly naive as the beliefs of Casado. It echoed the conclusions of the lunch shared by Miaja a week before with Casado, Matallana and Menéndez in Valencia. He told the President that it was necessary to form a government of professional soldiers who would be able to secure a reasonable peace treaty with Franco. Azaña allegedly replied: ‘I have decided to wash my hands of the problems of Spain. Whisper to General Miaja that he should do whatever he thinks best and what he considers to be his duty as a soldier and a Spaniard.’ Rojo then gave López letters for Miaja, Matallana and Negrín. López later claimed implausibly that the letter to Negrín urged him to resign and leave Spain while those to Miaja and Matalla instructed them to execute Negrín if he refused to leave. No such letters have been found subsequently.63
According to Vicente Uribe, ‘The majority of the Ministers had no desire to go to Madrid, morale was extremely low. No one dared say no and preparations to leave were made in accordance with Negrín’s orders.’ Negrín issued instructions to the soldiers and civilians who had accompanied him, some to return to the centre-south zone and others to remain in France to deal with the refugees and other issues regarding the evacuation. From Toulouse, he flew that night to Alicante, arriving on the morning of the next day. He was accompanied by Julio Álvarez del Vayo, his Foreign Minister, and Santiago Garcés Arroyo, the head of the Republic’s security apparatus, the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar. They flew under assumed names, paying their passage on a scheduled Air France flight.64
Before leaving, Negrín and Méndez Aspe had a meeting with Trifón Gómez, the quartermaster general of the Republican army. Gómez claimed later that they had discussed the question of food supplies for the centre zone. Negrín allegedly told him to continue sending food but to be careful not to build up stocks. Méndez Aspe allegedly went even further, saying that the war would probably last only another couple of weeks, and that, if there were enough supplies for that time, he was opposed to Gómez sending more. General Rojo made a similar point in his memoir of the period: ‘The supply services in the other zone were being dismantled: nothing could be sent, neither men, nor arms, nor matériel, nor munitions, nor raw materials; on the other hand, the political authorities were concentrating on bringing things to an end.’65
Assuming this to be true, it shows two things: first, that Negrín was returning to make peace and thus using the rhetoric of resistance as a bargaining chip and, second, that he and Méndez Aspe wanted to conserve resources for the inevitable exodus and subsequent exile. After overseeing the passage of the last Republican troops over the French frontier, Zugazagoitia remembered Negrín saying: ‘Let’s see if we can do the second part. That’s going to be more difficult.’ Zugazagoitia went on: ‘We were bringing things to an end and when he contemplated returning to the Centre-South zone, Negrín had only one thing on his mind, the end, with as little damage as possible, of a war that was lost.’ This coincides with the testimony of Negrín’s secretary Benigno Rodríguez, to whom he said that he was returning to Spain ‘to save as much as we can’.66
4
The Quest for an Honourable Peace
It was assumed by many of the politicians, army officers and functionaries who had crossed into France in early February 1939 that the government would not be returning to Spain. Even some cabinet ministers had their doubts. In cafés where exiles gathered and even in a meeting of senior members of the CNT, there was much venomous gossip about Negrín ranging from blaming him for the fall of Catalonia to accusing him of abandoning the Republic.1 Of course, Negrín did no such thing but went back in the hope of being able to negotiate a reasonable settlement. He arrived totally exhausted and drained emotionally and physically. Since becoming Prime Minister nearly two years earlier, the stress that he endured had increased exponentially. As well as exercising the basic duties of president of the council of ministers, he had continued to work hard to build on his achievements as Minister of Finance in ensuring the Republic’s economic survival. In April 1938, he had also become Minister of Defence with an intensely active involvement in the role. Throughout, he had carried out a notable diplomatic effort in a vain quest for international mediation to bring the war to an end without reprisals on the part of the Francoists. In addition, he had to deal with the petty squabbles and more than petty jealousies both within the wider coalition of Republican entities, the Popular Front, and within the Socialist Party. Inevitably, all of this took its toll. Just before midnight on Saturday 28 January, Azaña met Rojo and Negrín to discuss the situation in the wake of the loss of Barcelona. Azaña was shocked to see the ‘utter dejection’ of a Negrín who was ‘beaten and on his knees’. After the fall of Catalonia, and the Prime Minister’s long vigil at the frontier, his closest collaborators were alarmed at the visible deterioration in a man of once boundless energies.2
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