Franco. Paul Preston
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Bolín, who shared a hotel room with Franco in Casablanca, claims that he shaved there. The emergency pilot also claimed the credit for removing the moustache.73 Whenever the momentous shave took place, it gave rise to Queipo de Llano’s later jibe that the only thing that Franco ever sacrificed for Spain was his moustache.74
They made a stop at Agadir in the late afternoon where they had some difficulty in getting petrol. The Dragon Rapide then flew onto Casablanca, where, arriving late at night, they were surprised by the sudden disappearance of the landing lights. With fuel running out, there were moments of intense anxiety. The airport was officially closed but Bolín had bribed an official to open up. The light fault was only a blown fuse. When they had landed safely and were eating a sandwich, they decided on the advice of Bebb not to continue the journey north until morning. They then spent a few hours in a hotel. At first light, on 19 July, the aircraft took off for Tetuán. Franco, who had barely slept for three days, was full of vitality at 5.00 a.m. On crossing the frontier into Spanish Morocco, Franco and Pacón changed back into uniform. Unsure as to the situation that awaited them, they circled the aerodrome at Tetuán until they saw Lieutenant-Colonel Eduardo Saenz de Buruaga, an old Africanista crony of Franco. Totally reassured, Franco cried ‘podemos aterrizar, he visto al rubito’ (‘we can land, I’ve just seen blondy’), and they landed to receive the enthusiastic welcome of the waiting insurgents.75
Quickly made aware of the dramatic shortage of aircraft available to the rebels, Franco decided that Bolín should accompany Bebb in the Dragon Rapide as far as Lisbon to report to Sanjurjo and then go on to Rome to seek help. Two hours after depositing its passengers, the Dragon Rapide set off for Lisbon at 9.00 a.m. carrying Bolín with a piece of paper from General Franco which read ‘I authorize Don Luis Antonio Bolín to negotiate urgently in England, Germany or Italy the purchase of aircraft and supplies for the Spanish non-Marxist Army’. When Bolín asked for more details, Franco scribbled in pencil on the bottom of the paper ‘12 bombers, 3 fighters with bombs (and bombing equipment) of from 50 to 100 kilos. One thousand 50-kilo bombs and 100 more weighing about 500 kilos.’ In Lisbon, Bolín was to get the further authorization of Sanjurjo for his mission. On 20 July, the aircraft went from Lisbon to Biarritz. On 21 July, Bebb* took Bolín to Marseille whence he travelled on to Rome in order to seek military assistance from Mussolini.76
The fact that Franco should so quickly have decided to do something about the rebels’ need for foreign help is immensely revealing both of his self-confidence and his ambition. Sanjurjo was convinced that Franco aspired to nothing more than to be Alto Comisario in Morocco. However, his experience during the repression of the Asturian rising had given Franco a rather greater sense of his abilities and a significantly higher aspiration. How far-reaching those ambitions were to be was as yet something even Franco did not know. The situation would change rapidly as rivals were suddenly eliminated, as relationships were forged with the Germans and Italians and as the politics of the rebel zone fluctuated. Ever flexible, Franco would adjust his ambitions as, in the dramatic events ahead, more enticing possibilities arose.
* Pemán, a sardonically witty poet and playwright, was member of the extreme right-wing monarchist group, Acción Española.
* The necessary funds to hire Dragon Rapide G-ACYR – £2000 – were supplied by Juan March through the Fenchurch Street branch of Kleinwort’s Bank.
* On other occasions, Franco would show a similar determination to move on, apparently indifferent to the tragedy just recounted to him. The demise of Alfonso XIII in 1931, the death of Mola in April 1937 and Mussolini’s fall from power in 1943 all produced nearly identical responses.
* There they were met by Franco’s friend, the Spanish military attaché in Paris, Major Antonio Barroso who escorted them to Bayonne. They were to remain for the first three months of the Civil War in the home of the Polo family’s old governess Madame Claverie, under the protection of Lorenzo Martínez Fuset.
* After the civil war, Bebb and Pollard were decorated with the Falangist decoration the Knight’s Cross of the Imperial Order of the Yoke and the Arrows. Dorothy Watson and Diana Pollard were given the medal of the same order.
VI
THE MAKING OF A GENERALÍSIMO
July – August 1936
THERE CAN be no doubt that the unlikely figure of Franco, short and with a premature paunch, had a remarkable power to lift the morale of those around him. It was a quality which would play a crucial role in the Nationalist victory and would single him out as leader of the rebel war effort. Having finally shaken himself out of his spring-time hesitations, he once again temporarily resumed the adventurous persona which had served him so well in his rise to the rank of general. It could not have been better suited to the early days of the rising and would see him victoriously through the first months of the Civil War and take him to the doors of absolute power. At that point, caution would reassert itself.
When he drove into Tetuán from the aerodrome at 7.30 a.m. on the morning of Sunday 19 July, the streets were already lined with people shouting ‘¡Viva España!’ and ‘¡Viva Franco!’. He was greeted at the offices of the Spanish High Commission by military bands and gushingly enthusiastic officers. One of his first acts in his new headquarters was to draw up an address to his fellow military rebels throughout Morocco and in Spain. The text throbbed with self-confidence. Declaring that ‘Spain is saved’, it ended with words which summed up Franco’s unquestioning confidence, ‘Blind faith, no doubts, firm energy without vacillations, because the Patria demands it. The Movimiento sweeps all before it and there is no human force that can stop it’. Broadcast repeatedly by local radio stations, it had the instant effect of raising rebel spirits. When he reached Ceuta in the early afternoon, the scenes which he encountered were more consistent with the beginning of a great adventure than of a bloody civil war. Later in the day, he drove to the headquarters of the Legion in Dar Riffien. Nearly sixteen years earlier, he had arrived there for the first time to become second-in-command of the newly created force. His sense of destiny cannot fail to have been excited by the fact that now he was met by wildly euphoric soldiers chanting ‘Franco! Franco! Franco!’. Yagüe made a short and emotional speech: ‘Here they are, just as you left them … Magnificent and ready for anything. You, Franco, who so many times led them to victory, lead them again for the honour of Spain’. The newly arrived leader, on the verge of tears, embraced Yagüe and spoke to the Legionarios. He recognized that they were hungry for combat and raised their pay, already double that of the regular Army, by one peseta per day.1
That practical gesture was evidence that, behind the rhetoric, he was aware of the need to consolidate the support of those on whom he would have to rely in the next crucial weeks. Immediately on arriving at the High Commission, he had spent time in conclave with Colonels Saenz de Buruaga, Beigbeder and Martín Moreno discussing ways of recruiting Moorish volunteers.2 Now, on his return to Tetuán from Dar-Riffien, he took a further measure to secure Moroccan goodwill. He awarded the Gran Visir Sidi Ahmed el Gamnia Spain’s highest medal for bravery, the Gran Cruz Laureada de San Fernando, for his efforts in containing single-handed an anti-Spanish riot in Tetuán.3 It was a gesture which was to facilitate