To commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Civil War, José Ángel Mañas recreates in Zenda, day by day in this section, what happened in 1936, perhaps the most pivotal year in all of Spain’s recent history.
Friday, November 6, 1936: A government that flees
The government convoy was halted in the dead of night at one of the one hundred and thirty roadblocks, near Tarancón. The column was led by the anarchist Francisco Del Rosal. They were fascists. They had orders to seize anyone trying to escape, and despite protests from Minister Álvarez del Vayo, they forced them to dismount and drove them at gunpoint to a room in the nearest house, where they remained detained.
Only Indalecio Prieto and Pedro Rico, until recently the mayor of Madrid, sat down. Prieto’s stoutness seemed modest beside the hundred-and-thirty kilograms of Pedro Rico, the fattest mayor in the entire history of Spain.
—You will be ministers, but your duty, as leaders, is to stay by the people. By fleeing you demoralize the fighters.
That was the anarchist leader’s remark. And neither the protests of the Communist ministers, nor those of the cenetista Juan López Sánchez, availed anything. The militiaman, who brought them canteens of water, stared at them.
—So this is how Madrid’s bigwigs behave, eh?
That tone angered the governors. Suited and solemn, they stood upright, wrapped in their coats, some coughing, waiting for Del Rosal to reappear. Through the broken window of the stark room came the night’s cold. There stood, besides Pedro Rico and Prieto, Largo Caballero, Federica Montseny and García Oliver. Oliver was the most irritable. He grumbled that the anarchists should never have left Madrid, that he and the three cenetista ministers planned to return to the capital…
The militiaman seated himself on a chair beside the door. He placed his rifle on his knees. He lit a cigarette. He looked at them with scorn. For the Confederates it was a kick in the stomach to learn that the Government members were deserting Madrid. Someone proposed executing them on the spot. The matter was debated. In the end his superior chose to detain them while he consulted by telephone with some authority of the CNT.
That offended Montseny.
—Whom are you going to find with more authority than me?
But the man wanted to speak with Cipriano Mera. While they waited to be located, the ministers, very solemn, spoke in low voices. No one felt proud.
Today had been a dramatic day. The Largo Caballero government, with the CNT integrated into it, had convened in the morning at the palace to discuss evacuating Madrid. Varela’s forces stood at Madrid’s gates, to be defended by the same demoralized militias retreating from the fronts.
There was a danger of falling into Franco’s hands within hours, and in the Council of Ministers the CNT ministers opposed evacuation. They resisted stepping into the limelight by approving the withdrawal, and their opposition was duly noted. But Prieto argued that the decision had to be taken by unanimous consent, without heroes or villains.
—We should never have abandoned Madrid. We jumped the gun —muttered García Oliver.
—On the contrary —said Largo Caballero, taking up another chair. He was seventy years old—. If we had evacuated a month ago, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Even until recently, he himself believed that a government headed by him, representing the antifascist forces and backed by Russian materiel, would suffice to win the war. Unfortunately, the unity of the parties proved impossible. And the Soviet tanks, as seen at Seseña, without the accompaniment of trained troops, proved useless: too many had been lost. Armament per se does not win battles. Days earlier Largo Caballero had proposed unifying the War portfolio under his command. But Prieto, understanding that he intended to load onto him the responsibility for Madrid’s loss, rejected it. The only ones who did not abandon ship, but boarded at the worst possible moment, were the anarchists. That was seen as a shrewd move by Caballero.
There stood the Republic’s government, nearly complete, detained, looking at one another with bad humor, when suddenly the door opened and a stern Cipriano Mera appeared.
—I have come as soon as I could. You may leave.
—But Cipriano… —the head of the checkpoint complained.
—I said, release them! One thing is to disagree with CNT’s integration into the Government, another to be directly responsible for the Republic’s collapse. They are cowards, but we are not the ones who must judge them —continued Mera. And he turned to the governors—. Go! But do not forget, when you are in Valencia, that the fate of the Republic depends on you.
Todas las entradas de 1936 day by day
Entrevista con José Ángel Mañas sobre 1936 day by day