Franco, Francisco

Franco, Francisco (1892-1975), Spanish general and authoritarian leader (caudillo), who governed Spain from 1939 to 1975. Francisco Franco Bahamonde was born in 1892 in Spain's north-western naval town of Ferrol. After an insecure childhood, in 1907 he entered the Military Academy in Toledo. The army would be his great formative, and brutalizing, experience. Hungry for promotion, he sought a posting in Morocco in 1912. In a savage colonial war, his bravery and competence won him rapid promotions and by 1920, he was a second-in-command of the ruthless Foreign Legion. In 1926, he was promoted to Brigadier General, the youngest in Europe. His exploits made him a national hero and a favourite of King Alfonso XIII and, in 1927, he was made Director of the General Military Academy in Zaragoza.

Franco was devastated by the fall of the monarchy on April 14, 1931. The arrival of the antimilitarist Second Republic saw the closure of the Academy. After his bitter farewell speech, the Minister of War, Manuel Azaña, left him for eight months without a posting. Despite Franco's resentment, his merits saw Azaña, in February 1932, make him Military Commander first of La Coruña and then of the Balearic Islands. Under more right-wing governments, Franco again found preferment, being promoted to Major General on March 27, 1934 and, in October 1934, entrusted with the repression of a leftist insurrection in the northern mining valleys of Asturias. He was rewarded in February 1935 by being made commander-in-chief of the Spanish armed forces in Morocco, and in May, chief of general staff. He purged the army of progressive officers, and promoted right-wingers. After the Popular Front election victory on February 19, 1936, he vainly tried to prevent the left taking power, and was sent to the Canary Islands as military commander. Before leaving Spain, he joined a group of senior generals plotting a rising but dithered before finally joining the military coup of July 18, 1936.

Franco flew to Morocco to command the rebel colonial army. After a mutiny in the fleet gave control of the Straits to the Republic, he persuaded Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to supply transport aircraft for a large-scale airlift. Once on the mainland, he deployed the ruthless Army of Africa as an instrument of terror, its march on Madrid leaving a trail of slaughter. His contacts with Hitler and Mussolini and his progress towards Madrid made him the natural choice to be overall rebel commander. In late September 1936, he made certain by diverting his troops away from Madrid to relieve the besieged Alcázar of Toledo and so inflate his own political position with an emotional victory. On October 1, 1936, he became the Head of State. Having been thus permitted to organize its defences, Madrid held out in November and he then tried vainly in December 1936 and early 1937 to encircle the city albeit at great loss to the Republic. Thereafter, his strategy was dogged, conquering territory slowly to permit thorough political purges.

In April 1937, he united the forces of his coalition into the fascist Falange party. In mid-1937, he took the industrial north and in 1938 split the Republic in half. He annihilated the Republican army at the strategically irrelevant Battle of the Ebro in late 1938, and seized Barcelona in early 1939. After final victory on April 1, 1939 he created an impregnable dictatorship, coldly presiding over the repression of the defeated Left with nearly 1,000,000 prisoners and 200,000 executed.

Franco now cherished hopes of rebuilding the Spanish empire. During World War II, he pinned his hopes on an Axis victory, offering in June 1940 to fight at Hitler's side. Initially, the Führer was not interested. On October 23, 1940, Franco met Hitler at Hendaye near the Franco-Spanish border. Hitler was not prepared to feed and arm Spain, or to give Franco a North African empire. British and American supplies of food and fuel kept him neutral, although he did substantial service for Hitler by providing submarine refuelling bases, reconnaissance facilities, and strategic raw materials.

When the 1945 Potsdam Conference excluded Spain from the United Nations, Franco was confident that, in the Cold War, Spain's geostrategic position would eventually save him from the consequences of his pro-Axis policies. His propaganda apparatus presented him as having saved Spain from war. The Berlin Blockade and the Korean War ensured that he survived with his position strengthened. In September 1953 a treaty with the United States brought him into the Western fold, and in 1959 he received President Eisenhower in Madrid.

In 1957, he began to hand over daily administration to his confidant, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, and the technocrats associated with the religious fraternity Opus Dei. Franco himself was occupied giving innumerable audiences, inaugurating public works, chairing Cabinet meetings, and making arrangements for the succession after his death. He also indulged his passion for hunting, deep-sea fishing, and golf, and spent considerable time playing cards and dominoes with his inner circle of military friends. On December 24, 1961 he was injured in a hunting accident, which intensified concern about the post-Franco future. However, perennially slow, he waited until July 21, 1969 before naming Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón as his successor. He ruled on for a further six years, plagued by Parkinson's Disease. On December 20, 1973, he was devastated when Carrero Blanco was assassinated by Basque terrorists. He was henceforth in evident decline. Long hours spent watching the 1974 World Cup were a contributing factor to the attack of thrombophlebitis which led to his withdrawal from power in July of that year. He recovered, but within twelve months his final illness began. Franco died on November 20, 1975.