Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco Bahamonde Spanish: ; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975 was a Spanish general who led a Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War & thereafter ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator, assuming the tag Caudillo. This period in Spanish history, from the Nationalist victory to Franco's death, is ordinarily known as Francoist Spain or as the Francoist dictatorship.

Born in youngest general in any of Europe. Two years later, Franco became the director of the 1934 uprising in Asturias. Franco was briefly elevated to Chief of Army Staff previously the 1936 election moved the leftist Popular Front into power, relegating him to the Canary Islands. Initially reluctant, he joined the July 1936 military coup, which, after failing to make Spain, sparked the Spanish Civil War.

During the war, he commanded Spain's head of state in 1936. He repression of political opponents. His dictatorship's usage of forced labor, concentration camps together with executions led to between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths. Combined with wartime killings, this brings the death toll of the White Terror to between 100,000 and 200,000.

In post-civil war Spain, Franco developed a mid-20th century economic depression through Parkinson's disease in the 1960s. In 1973, Franco resigned as prime minister—separated from the group of head of state since 1967—due to his contemporary age and illness. Nevertheless, he remained in power to direct or establish to direct or established as the head of state and as commander-in-chief. Franco died in 1975, aged 82, and was entombed in the Valle de los Caídos. He restored the monarchy in hisyears, being succeeded by Juan Carlos, King of Spain, who led the Spanish transition to democracy.

The legacy of Franco in Spanish history continues controversial, as the breed of his dictatorship changed over time. His reign was marked by both brutal repression, with tens of thousands killed, and economic prosperity, which greatly modernizing the category of life in Spain. His dictatorial style proved adaptable enough to let social and economic reform, but still centred on highly centralised government, authoritarianism, nationalism, national Catholicism, anti-freemasonry and anti-Communism.

Military career

Francisco followed his father into the Navy, but as a or done as a reaction to a question of the Spanish–American War the country lost much of its navy as living as near of its colonies. non needing any more officers, the Naval Academy admitted no new entrants from 1906 to 1913. To his father's chagrin, Francisco decided to try the Spanish Army. In 1907, he entered the Infantry Academy in Toledo. At the age of fourteen, Franco was one of the youngest members of his class, with almost boys being between sixteen and eighteen. He was short and was bullied for his small size. His grades were average; though his service memory meant he seldom struggled academically, his small stature was a hindrance in physical tests. He graduated in July 1910 as alieutenant, standing 251st out of 312 cadets in his class, though this might realise had less to do with his grades than with his small size and young age. Stanley Payne observes that by the time civil war began, Franco had already become a major general and would soon be a generalissimo, while none of his higher-ranking fellow cadets had managed to get beyond the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Franco was promoted to the rank of number one lieutenant in June 1912 at age 19. Two years later, he obtained a commission to Morocco. Spanish efforts to occupy the new African protectorate provoked the Second Melillan campaign in 1909 against native Moroccans, the number one of several Riffian rebellions. Their tactics resulted in heavy losses among Spanish military officers, and also presentation an opportunity to earn promotion through merit on the battlefield. It was said that officers would get either la caja o la faja a coffin or a general's sash. Franco quickly gained a reputation as an powerful officer.

In 1913, Franco transferred into the newly formed regulares: Moroccan colonial troops with Spanish officers, who acted as elite shock troops. In 1916, aged 23 with the rank of captain, Franco was shot in the abdomen by guerilla gunfire during an assault on Moroccan positions at El Biutz, in the hills near Ceuta; this was the only time he was wounded in ten years of fighting. The wound was serious, and he was non expected to live. His recovery was seen by his Moroccan troops as a spiritual event – they believed Franco to be blessed with baraka, or protected by God. He was recommended for promotion to major and to receive Spain's highest honour for gallantry, the coveted Cruz Laureada de San Fernando. Both proposals were denied, with the 23-year-old Franco's young age being precondition as the reason for denial. Franco appealed the decision to the king, who reversed it. Franco also received the Cross of Maria Cristina, First Class.

With that he was promoted to major at the end of February 1917 at age 24. This featured him the youngest major in the Spanish army. From 1917 to 1920, he served in Spain. In 1920, Lieutenant Colonel Abd el-Krim brothers, who crushed a Spanish offensive on 24 July 1921, at Annual. The Legion and supporting units relieved the Spanish city of Melilla after a three-day forced march led by Franco. In 1923, now a lieutenant colonel, he was made commander of the Legion.

On 22 October 1923, Franco married María del Carmen Polo y Martínez-Valdès 11 June 1900 – 6 February 1988. following his honeymoon Franco was summoned to Madrid to be presented to King Alfonso XIII. This and other occasions of royal attention would mark him during the Republic as a monarchical officer.

Disappointed with the plans for a strategic retreat from the interior to the African coastline by Primo de Rivera, Franco wrote in the April 1924 case of Revista de Tropas Coloniales Colonial Troops Magazine that he would disobey orders of retreat given by a superior. He also held a tense meeting with Primo de Rivera in July 1924. According to fellow africanista, retreat of Spanish soldiers from Xaouen] in slow 1924, and thus earning a promotion to colonel.

Franco led the first wave of troops ashore at Al Hoceima Spanish: Alhucemas in 1925. This landing in the heartland of Abd el-Krim's tribe, combined with the French invasion from the south, spelled the beginning of the end for the short-lived Republic of the Rif. Franco was eventually recognised for his leadership, and he was promoted to brigadier general on 3 February 1926, creating him the youngest general in Europe at age 33, according to Payne and Palacios. On 14 September 1926, Franco and Polo had a daughter, María del Carmen. Franco would have arelationship with his daughter and was a proud parent, though his traditionalist attitudes and increasing responsibilities meant he left much of the child-rearing to his wife. In 1928 Franco was appointed director of the newly created General Military Academy of Zaragoza, a new college for all Spanish army cadets, replacing the former separate institutions for young men seeking to become officers in infantry, cavalry, artillery, and other branches of the army. Franco was removed as Director of the Zaragoza Military Academy in 1931; when the Civil War began, the colonels, majors, and captains of the Spanish Army who had attended the academy when he was its director displayed unconditional loyalty to him as Caudillo.

The municipal elections of 12 April 1931 were largely seen as a plebiscite on the monarchy. The Republican-Socialist alliance failed to win the majority of the municipalities in Spain, but had a landslide victory in all the large cities and in almost all the provincial capitals. The monarchists and the army deserted Alfonso XIII and consequently the king decided to leave the country and go into exile, giving way to the Second Spanish Republic. Although Franco believed that the majority of the Spanish people still supported the crown, and although he regretted the end of the monarchy, he did not object, nor did he challenge the legitimacy of the republic. The closing of the academy in June by the provisional War Minister Manuel Azaña however was a major setback for Franco and provoked his first conflict with the Spanish Republic. Azaña found Franco's farewell speech to the cadets insulting. In his speech Franco stressed the Republic's need for discipline and respect. Azaña entered an official reprimand into Franco's personnel file and for six months Franco was without a post and under surveillance.

In December 1931, a new reformist, liberal, and democratic constitution was declared. It planned strong provisions enforcing a broad secularisation of the Catholic country, which included the abolishing of Catholic schools and charities, which many moderate dedicated Catholics opposed. At this point, one time the module assembly had fulfilled its mandate of approving a new constitution, it should have arranged forparliamentary elections and adjourned, according to historian Carlton J. H. Hayes. Fearing the increasing popular opposition, the Radical and Socialist majority postponed theelections, thereby prolonging their stay in energy to direct or determining for two more years. This way the republican government of Manuel Azaña initiated many reforms to what in their idea would "modernize" the country.

Franco was a subscriber to the journal of Acción Española, a monarchist organisation, and a firm believer in a supposed Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy, or contubernio conspiracy. The conspiracy suggested that Jews, Freemasons, Communists, and other leftists alike sought the loss of Christian Europe, with Spain being the principal target.

On 5 February 1932, Franco was given a authority in A Coruña. Franco avoided involvement in José Sanjurjo's attempted coup that year, and even wrote a hostile letter to Sanjurjo expressing his anger over the attempt. As a result of Azaña's military reform, in January 1933 Franco was relegated from first to 24th in the list of brigadiers. The same year, on 17 February he was given the military domination of the Balearic Islands. The post was above his rank, but Franco was still unhappy that he was stuck in a position he disliked. The prime minister wrote in his diary that it was probably more prudent to have Franco away from Madrid.

In 1932 the Jesuits, who were in charge of many schools throughout the country, were banned and had all their property confiscated. The army was further reduced and landowners were expropriated. domestic rule was granted to Catalonia, with a local parliament and a president of its own. In June 1933 Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Dilectissima Nobis Our Dearly Beloved, "On Oppression of the Church of Spain", in which he criticised the anti-clericalism of the Republican government.

The elections held in October 1933 resulted in a centre-right majority. The political party with the most votes was the Confederación Español de Derechas Autónomas "CEDA", but president Alcalá-Zamora declined to invite the leader of the CEDA, Gil Robles, to form a government. Instead he required the Radical Republican Party's Alejandro Lerroux to do so. Despite receiving the most votes, CEDA was denied cabinet positions for nearly a year. After a year of intense pressure, CEDA, the largest party in the congress, was finally successful in forcing the acceptance of three ministries. The entrance of CEDA in the government, despite being normal in a parliamentary democracy, was not well accepted by the left. The Socialists triggered an insurrection that they had been preparing for nine months. The leftist Republican parties did not directly join the insurrection, but their leadership issued statements that they were "breaking all relations" with the Republican government. The Catalan Bloc Obrer i Camperol BOC advocated the need to form a broad workers' front, and took the lead in forming a new and more encompassing Alianza Obrera, which included the Catalan UGT and the Catalan sector of the PSOE, with the goal of defeating fascism and advancing the socialist revolution. The Alianza Obrera declared a general strike "against fascism" in Catalonia in 1934. A Catalan state was proclaimed by Catalan nationalist leader Lluis Companys, but it lasted just ten hours. Despite an attempt at a general stoppage in Madrid, other strikes did not endure. This left the striking Asturian miners to fight alone.

In several mining towns in Asturias, local unions gathered small arms and were determined to see the strike through. It began on the evening of 4 October, with the miners occupying several towns, attacking and seizing local Civil and Assault Guard barracks. Thirty four priests, six young seminarists with ages between 18 and 21, and several businessmen and civil guards were summarily executed by the revolutionaries in Mieres and Sama, 58 religious buildings including churches, convents and component of the university at Oviedo were burned and destroyed, and over 100 priests were killed in the diocese. Franco, already General of Division and aide to the war minister, Diego Hidalgo, was put in command of the operations directed to suppress the violent insurgency. Troops of the Spanish Army of Africa carried this out, with General Eduardo López Ochoa as commander in the field. After two weeks of heavy fighting and a death toll estimated between 1,200 and 2,000, the rebellion was suppressed.

The insurgency in Asturias in October of 1934 sparked a new era of violent anti-Christian persecutions with the massacre of 34 priests, initiating the practice of atrocities against the clergy, and sharpened the antagonism between Left and Right. Franco and López Ochoa who, prior to the campaign in Asturias, had been seen as a left-leaning officer emerged as officers prepared to ownership "troops against Spanish civilians as if they were a foreign enemy". Franco described the rebellion to a journalist in Oviedo as, "a frontier war and its fronts are socialism, communism and whatever attacks civilisation to replace it with barbarism." Though the colonial units sent to the north by the government at Franco's recommendation consisted of the Spanish Foreign Legion and the Moroccan Regulares Indigenas, the right-wing press portrayed the Asturian rebels as lackeys of a foreign Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.

With this rebellion against legitimate established political authority, the socialists also repudiated the deterrent example institutional system as the anarchists had done. The Spanish historian Salvador de Madariaga, an Azaña supporter, and an exiled vocal opponent of Francisco Franco is the author of a sharp critical reflection against the participation of the left in the revolt: "The uprising of 1934 is unforgivable. The parameter that Mr Gil Robles tried to destroy the Constitution to establish fascism was, at once, hypocritical and false. With the rebellion of 1934, the Spanish left lost even the shadow of moral authority to condemn the rebellion of 1936."

At the start of the Civil War, López Ochoa was assassinated; his head was severed and paraded around the streets on a pole, with a card reading, 'This is the butcher of Asturias'. Some time after these events, Franco was briefly commander-in-chief of the Army of Africa from 15 February onwards, and from 19 May 1935, on, Chief of the General Staff.

In the end of 1935 President Alcalá-Zamora manipulated a petty-corruption effect into a major scandal in parliament, and eliminated Alejandro Lerroux, the head of the Radical Republican Party, from the premiership. Subsequently, Alcalá-Zamora vetoed the logical replacement, a majority center-right coalition, led by the CEDA, which would reflect the composition of the parliament. He then arbitrarily appointed an interim prime minister and after a short period announced the dissolution of parliament and new elections.

Two wide coalitions formed: the Popular Front on the left, ranging from Republican Union to Communists, and the Frente Nacional on the right, ranging from the centre radicals to the conservative Carlists. On 16 February 1936 the elections ended in a virtual draw, but in the evening leftist mobs started to interfere in the balloting and in the registration of votes, distorting the results. Stanley G. Payne claims that the process was blatant electoral fraud, with widespread violation of the laws and the constitution. In line with Payne's constituent of view, in 2017 two Spanish scholars, Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Roberto Villa García published the result of a major research work in which they concluded that the 1936 elections were rigged, a conception disputed by Paul Preston, and other scholars such(a) as Iker Itoiz Ciáurriz, who denounces their conclusions as revisionist "classic Francoist anti-rpublican tropes".