Franco. Paul Preston
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and arrived on 11 August. The other ten, disguised as civilian transport aircraft, flew directly to Spanish Morocco between 29 July and 9 August. All were accompanied by spare parts and technicians.72 On 29 July, a delighted Franco telegrammed Mola ‘today the first transport aircraft arrives. They will go on arriving at the rate of two per day until we have twenty. I am also expecting six fighters and twenty machine guns.’ The telegram ended on a triumphant note, ‘We have the upper hand (Somos los amos). ¡Viva España!’. All arrived but one, which blew off course and landed in Republican territory.73
Despite the consequent intensification of the Nationalist air-lift, there was considerable exaggeration in Hitler’s much-quoted remark of 1942 that ‘Franco ought to erect a monument to the glory of the Junkers Ju-52. It is this aircraft that the Spanish revolution has to thank for its victory.’74 The Ju-52 was only one part, albeit a crucial one, of the airlift. What is equally remarkable at this stage of the military rebellion is Franco’s unquenchable optimism which not only kept up morale among his own men but also consolidated his authority with his fellow rebels elsewhere in Spain. In Burgos, Mola was in despair at the delay in getting the Army of Africa to the mainland. He telegrammed Franco on 25 July that he was contemplating a retreat behind the line of the river Duero after his initial attack on Madrid had been repulsed. With characteristic firmness and optimism, Franco replied: ‘Stand firm, victory certain’.75
On 1 August, Franco again telegrammed Mola: ‘we will ensure the successful passage of the convoy, crucial to the advance’.76 On 2 August, accompanied by Pacón, Franco flew to Seville to galvanize the preparations being made by Colonel Martín Moreno for the march on Madrid which was to begin that day.77 He could see that, even with the Italian and German transport aircraft, the airlift was far too slow. His plan for a convoy to break the blockade had been scheduled for 2 and then 3 August but cancelled. So, on returning to Morocco on 3 August, Franco held a meeting of his staff to fix a new date for the flotilla to make its dash across the Straits. Franco insisted that the troop convoy go by sea from Ceuta at dawn on 5 August despite concerns about the risks expressed by Yagüe and the naval officers. Convinced that the Republican crews were ineffective, Franco side-stepped the objections.78 He knew too that the Republican navy would be inhibited by the presence of German warships which were patrolling the Moroccan coasts.79 Accordingly, he sent another reassuring telegram to Mola on 4 August.80
On the morning of 5 August, air attacks were launched on the Republican ships in the Straits and the convoy set out but was forced back by thick fog. Meanwhile, Franco telephoned Kindelán in Algeciras and asked him to request the British authorities at Gibraltar to refuse access to the port to the Republican destroyer, Lepanto. This request was met and the Republican ship was allowed only to let off its dead and wounded before being obliged to leave Gibraltar. The convoy of ferry boats and naval vessels with three thousand men again set forth in the late afternoon, watched by Franco from the nearby hill of El Hacho. Air cover was provided by the two Dornier flying boats, the Savoia-81 bombers and the six Breguet fighters. The Republican vessels in the vicinity, incapable of manoeuvring to avoid air attack, made little effort to impede their passage. The success of the so-called ‘victory convoy’ brought the number of soldiers transported across the Straits to eight thousand together with large quantities of equipment and ammunition.81
The convoy’s success was a devastating propaganda blow to the Republic. The news that the ruthless Army of Africa was on the way depressed Republican spirits as much as it boosted those in the Nationalist zone. By 6 August, there were troop-ships regularly crossing the Straits under Italian air cover. The Germans also sent six Heinkel He-51 fighters and ninety-five volunteer pilots and mechanics from the Luftwaffe. Within a week, the rebels were receiving regular supplies of ammunition and armaments from both Hitler and Mussolini. The airlift was the first such operation of its kind on such a scale and constituted a strategic innovation which redounded to the prestige of General Franco. Between July and October 1936, 868 flights were to carry nearly fourteen thousand men, 44 artillery pieces and 500 tons of equipment.82
At this time, Mola made a significant error in the internal power stakes. On 1 August, heir to the Spanish throne, the tall and good-natured Don Juan de Borbón, the third son of Alfonso XIII, arrived in Burgos in a chauffeur-driven Bentley.* Anxious to fight on the Nationalist side, he had left his home in Cannes on 31 July, despite the fact that on that day his wife Doña María de Mercedes was giving birth to a daughter. Mola ordered the Civil Guard to ensure that he left Spain immediately. The fact that he did so abruptly and without consultation with his fellow generals revealed both Mola’s lack of subtlety and his anti-monarchist sentiments. The incident contributed to deeply monarchist officers transferring their long-term political loyalty to Franco.83 In contrast, when Franco later took a similar step, preventing Don Juan volunteering to serve on the battleship Baleares, he was careful to pass off his action as an effort to guarantee that the heir to the throne should be ‘King of all Spaniards’ and not be compromised by having fought on one side in the war.84
Two days after the successful ‘victory convoy’, Franco flew to Seville and established his headquarters in the magnificent palace of the Marquesa de Yanduri.85 Marking a clear distinction with Queipo’s more modest premises, the palace’s grandeur revealed more about Franco’s political ambitions than his military necessities. He began to use a Douglas DC-2 to visit the front or travel to meet Mola for consultations.86 In Seville, he began to gather around him the basis of a general staff. Apart from two ADCs, Pacón and an artillery Major Carlos Diaz Varela, there were Colonel Martín Moreno, General Kindelán and, a recent arrival, General Millán Astray.87 This reflected the fact that finally he had an army on the move.
Even before the ‘victory convoy’, Franco had already, on 1 August, ordered a column under the command of the tough Lieutenant-Colonel Carlos Asensio Cabanillas to occupy Mérida and deliver seven million cartridges to the forces of General Mola. The column had set out on Sunday 2 August in trucks provided by Queipo de Llano and advanced eighty kilometres in the first two days. Facing fierce resistance from untrained and poorly armed Republican militiamen, they took another four days to reach Almendralejo in the province of Badajoz. Asensio’s column had been followed on 3 August by another column led by Major Antonio Castejón which had advanced somewhat to the east and on 7 August by a third under Lieutenant-Colonel Heli Rolando de Tella. Franco telegrammed Mola on 3 August to make it clear that the ultimate goal of these columns was Madrid. After the frenetic efforts of the previous two weeks to secure international support and get his troops across the Straits, Franco’s mood was euphoric.
Franco placed Yagüe in overall field command of the three columns. He ordered them to make a three-pronged attack on Mérida, an old Roman town near Cáceres, and an important communications centre between Seville and Portugal. The columns advanced with the Legionaires on the roads and the Moorish Regulares fanning out on either side to outflank any Republican opposition. With the advantage of local air superiority provided by Savoia-81 flown by Italian Air Force pilots and Junkers Ju-52 flown by Luftwaffe pilots, they easily took villages and towns in the provinces of Seville and Badajoz, El Real de la Jara, Monesterio, Llerena, Zafra, Los Santos de Maimona, annihilating any leftists or supposed Popular Front sympathisers found and leaving a horrific trail of slaughter