Francisco+Franco

=__**Francisco Franco y Bahamonde**__= Francisco Franco (December 4, 1892 - November 20, 1975), the son of a naval postmaster, was born in El Ferrol, Spain, on 4th December, 1892. Franco graduated from the Toledo Military Academy in 1910. Commissioned into the 8th Regiment he was posted to Morocco in 1913. Although physically small he proved to be a courageous officer and won rapid promotion. Franco had reached the rank of major in 1917 and played a prominent role in strike-breaking in the Asturian coal fields and in 1920 Lieutenant Colonel Millán Astray appointed him second in command of the Spanish Foreign Legion. Franco was from a military family, and although originally intent on entering the Spanish Navy, he instead became a soldier. He participated in the Rif War in Morocco, becoming the youngest general in Europe by 1926. After returning to the Spanish mainland, he saw service suppressing an anarchist-led strike in 1934, defending the stability of Alcalá-Zamora's conservative government. Following the formation of a Popular Front government, made up of various left-wing factions, instability heightened. Violence between militant groups rose sharply with assassination of conservative parliamentary leader José Calvo Sotelo, in retaliation for the killing of José Castillo. Franco and his co-conspirators used Calvo's death as their pretext for war, as they had already initiated the plan for their rebellion.

=__**World War II**__=

In September 1939, World War II broke out in Europe, and although Hitler met Franco once in Hendaye, France (23 October 1940), to discuss Spanish entry on the side of the Axis, Franco's demands (food, military equipment, Gibraltar, French North Africa etc.) proved too much and no agreement was reached. (An oft-cited remark attributed to Hitler is that the German leader would rather have some teeth extracted than to have to deal further with Franco). Franco's tactics received important support from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini during the civil war. He remained emphatically neutral in the Second World War, but nonetheless offered various kinds of support to Italy and Germany. He allowed Spanish soldiers to volunteer to fight in the German Army against the USSR (the Blue Division), but forbade Spaniards to fight in the West against the democracies. Franco's common ground with Hitler was particularly weakened by Hitler's propagation of Nazi mysticism and his attempts to manipulate Christianity, which went against Franco's fervent commitment to defending Christianity and Catholicism. Contributing to the disagreement was an ongoing dispute over German mining rights in Spain. Some historians argue that Franco made demands that he knew Hitler would not accede to in order to stay out of the war.Other historians argue that he, as leader of a destroyed country in chaos following a brutal three-year civil war, simply had nothing to offer the Germans and their military.Yet, after the collapse of France in June 1940, Spain did adopt a pro-Axis non-belligerency stance (for example, he offered Spanish naval facilities to German ships) until returning to complete neutrality in 1943 when the tide of the war had turned decisively against Germany and its allies. Franco did also consider blocking allied access to the Mediterrean Sea by invading the British-controlled Gibraltar, but abandoned the idea after learning that the plan would have likely failed and would have given the British an excellent opportunity to take both the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco. Some volunteer Spanish troops (the División Azul, or "Blue Division")—not given official state sanction by Franco—went to fight on the Eastern Front under German command from 1941–1943. Some historians have argued that not all of the Blue Division were true volunteers and that Franco expended relatively small but significant resources to aid the Axis powers' battle against the Soviet Union. According to the recent discovery of a World War II document, Franco ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis powers. Franco supplied Heinrich Himmler with a list of 6,000 Jews in Spain, for the Nazis' "Final Solution". It is true that Franco built no concentration camps on Spanish territory, nor did he voluntarily hand Jews over to Germany. Spanish diplomats, acting outside of Franco's authority, extended their diplomatic protection over Jews in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the Balkans. On 14 June 1940, the Spanish forces in Morocco occupied Tangier and did not leave it until 1945.

=**__Spain as the Spanish Head of State__**=

Franco was recognized as the Spanish head of state by Britain and France in February 1945, two months before the war officially ended. Already proclaimed Generalissimo of the Nationalists and Jefe del Estado (Head of State) in October 1936, he thereafter assumed the official title of "Su Excelencia el Jefe de Estado" ("His Excellency the Head of State"). However, he was also referred to in state and official documents as "Caudillo de España" ("the Leader of Spain"), and sometimes called "el Caudillo de la Última Cruzada y de la Hispanidad" ("the Leader of the Last Crusade and of the Hispanic heritage") and "el Caudillo de la Guerra de Liberación contra el Comunismo y sus Cómplices" ("the Leader of the War of Liberation Against Communism and Its Accomplices"). In 1947, Franco proclaimed Spain a monarchy, but did not designate a monarch. This gesture was largely done to appease the Movimiento Nacional (Carlists and Alfonsists). Although a self-proclaimed monarchist himself, Franco had no particular desire to proclaim himself King of Spain, nor have a King to rule the country yet, and as such, he left the throne vacant, with himself as a de facto Regent. He wore the uniform of a Captain General (a rank traditionally reserved for the King) and resided in the El Pardo Palace. In addition, he appropriated the royal privilege of walking beneath a canopy, and his portrait appeared on most Spanish coins and postage stamps. He also added "by the grace of God", a phrase usually part of the styles of monarchs, to his style. Franco initially sought support from various groups. He initially garnered support from the fascist elements of the Falange, but distanced himself from fascist ideology after the defeat of the Axis in World War II. Franco's administration marginalized fascist ideologues in favor of technocrats, many of whom were linked with Opus Dei, who promoted the economic modernization under Franco. Although Franco and Spain under his rule adopted some trappings of fascism, he, and Spain under his rule, are not generally considered to be fascist; among the distinctions, fascism entails a revolutionary aim to transform society, where Franco and Franco's Spain did not seek to do so, and, to the contrary, although authoritarian, were conservative and traditional. Stanley Payne notes: "scarcely any of the serious historians and analysts of Franco consider the generalissimo to be a core fascist". The consistent points in Franco's long rule, along with the Moroccan Moorish Guard, included above all authoritarianism, nationalism, the defense of Catholicism, anti-Freemasonry, and anti-Communism. The aftermath of the Civil War was socially bleak: many of those who had supported the Republic fled into exile. Spain lost thousands of doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, judges, professors, businessmen, artists, etc. Many of those who had to stay lost their jobs or lost their rank. Sometimes those jobs were given to unskilled and even untrained personnel. This deprived the country of many of its brightest minds, and also of a very capable workforce. However, this was done to keep Spain's citizens consistent with the ideals sought by the Nationalists and Franco.

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Created by Michael Shio, 2012