FRANCO: MYTH AND REALITY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 55, 7 March 1939, Page 5

FRANCO: MYTH AND REALITY

Gentle Knight or Slayer of Innocents? New Master of Spain

Who. what is Franco? For some, the providential champion of western civilisation; for others, the sinister instrument of barbaric forces; glorious archangel, or spirit of evil; saviour of his country, or traitor; gentle knight or slayer of innocents; the best or the worst. All that can be said of a man has been said of him. Thus writes Manne Nogales, a Spanish journalist. Here is an article by Senor Nogales:

pEOPLE may he for or against Eranco, but no one has ever troubled to know whether he really exists. And what if this Franco of one's imagination does not exist? There is no question of denying the evidence of the senses. Franco is to-day the undisputed master of nationalist Spain. But what is he in himself? What is the man behind the shining armour in which he presents himself to the world? To gain an exact idea of Franco, it is necessary to extricate oneself from the saga. What must be done is to describe him in simple words, to avoid the superlatives and the emphasis of the Castilian language. Franco has no resemblance whatever to what can he called a great man. In his whole life, there is not a single symbol of greatness. His biographers would be hard put to it to find one. In this man. the surprising clement is his absolute normality. The greatest praise accorded to him by his intimates—when sincere- is to say that he is a normal person Fundamental Mediocrity. Francos mediocrity does not imply that he is incapable of accomplishing any ssk. even if difficult and hard. Franco can be what he likes except a man above his peers. But this reservation cannot prevent him from accomplishing honestly the duties assigned to him Studious, diligent, courageous, tenacious, he has succeeded in becoming one nf the foremost, and most brilliant officers of the Spanish army. Similarly, he would have been capable of taking a first in any civil service examination. Franco is the type of a man destined for a brilliant career. If history were made by those who come out first in their examinations. Franco would have been the leading man of present-day Spain. But professional training, the mastery nf a given technique, cannot confer that conception of universality which is the characteristic of the superman. The systematic sacrifice of general culture to specialisation and technical capacity results in the specialist and the technican. when released from the narrow field of their own activity, tending to become barbarians. This is the explanation of Franco. A brilliant officer, an incomparable military technician. Franco, urged on by his ambition, imagined one day that he could in himself replace the leading forces of a country undermined by a general crisis. This conclusion led him to declare war as the sole solution withing his comprehension and as the only career open to him This serious result of specialisation, however, is not in itself sufficient to explain the case of Franco. There is another purely personal and particularly ominous factor; Franco has no imagination.

Lack of Imagination. If Franco could have imagined the consequence easily foreseen and almost inevitable-of each of his decisions. he would have taken another line. If, when he distributed to his Fascists the arms obtained in the arsenals of the mutined regiments, he had been capable of imagining that the Government might also distribute such weapons as were available to the Communists and to the anarchists—if, when he inaugurated the “White Terror’’ in order to avoid the failure of his military rebellion (strategy borrowed from Lenin)—if, when transforming the Spanish counter-revolution into an antidemocratic crusade to secure the support of Germany and Italy, he had been able to foresee the exact importance of the general reaction against the imperialism of the totalitarian countries, it is certain that Franco would have • in no wise proceeded as he has done. How many lives must be sacrificed before this man’s lack of imagination can be redeemed? Like all people without imagination. Franco is cruel. It is wrongly believed that cruelty is a ■ product of the imagination. There is ' talk of refined cruelty, and the cruel man is represented as a kind of spirit of evil, whereas in reality cruelty is > chiefly the result of a mental deficiency, of a lack of imagination. This intellectual deficiency was that which incited Franco to inaugurate the ‘White Terror” in order to avoid the failure of his military rebellion. He ’ was unable to foresee the consequences i of according a free hand to assassins in White as in Red Spain, and as a result ; of this deficiency he urged his men to I compete with the murderers of the F A.I. for a championship in which it is i still difficult to say who will be the victor. In Franco’s life, there have been 1 three critical moments which art I symptomatic of the subversive course of his mental development, of his i secret revolt against a Spanish nation ' incompatible with the conception of an ■ ambitious officer. History will relate that Franco rebelled on July 18. 1936, i because a Republican Government, ' undermined by revolutionaries, coun- •' tenanced the murder of Calvo Sotelo, but Franco’s rebellion against his country came in reality before all pretexts ' invoked to justify the military sedition. I The rebel already existed and only awaited an opportunity for action. Franco’s First Revolt. The first clash between Franco s perI sonal ambition and the Spanish Gov- . ernment took place under the monarchy ' at the time of the military dictatorI ship. At a certain moment. General ■ Primo de Rivera, dictator of Spain, i came to the conclusion that it would be

both well advised and patriotic to put an end to the Moroccan campaign, which, for twenty years, had exhausted the reI sources of the country. His policy encountered opposition on the part of the African Army. Relying upon his personal prestige and his authority as dictator, Prime de Rivera travelled to Morocco himself, and convoked chiefs and officers of the Legion to the camp of Ben Tieb, thinking that he could reduce them to obedience. When he arrived, the camp was in a state of open mutiny; subversive posters decorated the walls; the officers received him revolver in hand. The leader of the mutiny. Lieutenant Colonel Franco, commander of the Legion, informed the dictator that the intentions of the officers of the colonial corps were directly and unshakably oppoed to those of the Government. That day saw the moral downfall of Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, involving. shortly after, that of Alfonso XIII. The Moroccan war continued, and would still have continued for the glory and profit of the Spanish officers, if the French Government had not decided to put an end once and for all to the revolt of Abd-el-Krim. and had not ' persuaded the Spanish Government to | join forces in so doing. The Rebel Waits. ' Another critical period nf Francos , life was that, of the dissolution of the ■ General Military Academy by the Republic. When the Moroccan campaign came to an end. Franco was instructed to revive the former Academy at Saragossa, and he devoted his best efforts to the formation of an officers' corps. The conflict between the Government’s policy and the conceptions of Francos cadets became flagrant. Franco could form excellent officers, but he was incapable of transforming them into good citizens and loyal servants of the State, whether Republican or Monarchic. ' Azana ordered the dissolution of the ' Academy, but Franco, when the time ■ came to separate, assigned to each the | duties he would have to fulfil at a i given moment. From that time. Franco was a rebel at. heart. He merely awaited his hour. After the triumph of the People’s Front, in the 1936 elections, the only door left open to him was civil war. For this purpose, he counted upon a subversive force, in itself negligible, but with the support of the army, sufficient to terrorise the country, and to bend it to his absolute will, the Spanish Phalanx—the advent of Fascism in Spain. With the support of this force. Franco accomplished his revolution, and to this force, from the outset, he entrusted the power, disregarding the social and conservative elements on which he had hitherto based his policy. Just as he had abandoned to their fate the dictatorship and the monarchy. Franco deserted the conservative elements of his country, in whose name he. had initiated his rebellion, to rely solely upon international Fascism, whose designs on the Mediterranean 1 and North Africa have enabled him to carry on for two and a half years a terrible civil war—the only purpose of which is to instal in Spain a personal and arbitrary Government, in the long run. not that of the Phalanx, but of this ’‘normal’’ General, who has made his ravaged country the tool of the totalitarian Powers. Such is the man. and such is his work.