The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

the King named as Prime Minister Admiral Aznar, who was unknown and inexperienced. He and the King decided to test opinion by holding municipal, not general, elections in April. In the interim, student riots of a violent kind forced the civil guard on to the defensive.
    These local elections were held in an exuberant atmosphere, and assumed the character of a plebiscite. Huge meetings were addressed all over the country by would-be politicians of every sort. When the final results of the poll on 12 April began to come in, it was obvious that, in all the large towns of Spain, the candidates who supported the monarchy had been defeated. The size of the republicans’ vote in Madrid and Barcelona (then with populations of 950,000 and a million respectively) 1 was enormous. In the country, the monarchy gained enough seats to secure for its friends a majority in the nation as a whole. But it was realized that, there, the
caciques
were powerful enough to prevent a fair vote. 2 In several places, a republic was proclaimed—the first being Eibar, in the Basque provinces. By the evening of 14 April, crowds were gathering in the streets of Madrid. The cabinet, aghast and intimidated, advised the King to accept the republican leaders’ advice to leave the capital ‘before sunset’, to prevent bloodshed. Only one minister, Juan de la Cierva (the minister of the interior at the time of the ‘Tragic Week’ in 1909), wanted to resist. If the King had done so, he might have triumphed in Madrid, but he would have found the provincial capitals disposed to fight. A civil war might there and then have followed. At least one of the King’s cousins wanted him to hold on. But Alfonso issued a dignified announcement:
Sunday’s elections have shown me that I no longer enjoy the love of my people. I could very easily find means to support my royal powers against all comers, but I am determined to have nothing to do with setting one of my countrymen against another in a fratricidal civil war. Thus, until the nation speaks, I shall deliberately suspend the use of my royal prerogatives.
    With these grave and cryptic words, the King drove away from Madrid to the coast, and to exile.
    The experiment of constitutional monarchy tried between 1874 and 1923 failed because it was a defensive political arrangement brought into effect in reaction to the revolutionary confusion of 1868–74. Its statesmen could, to begin with, play on the desire for survival (
ansia de vivir
), which affects even the poor, after an upheaval. The turbulence revived and Primo de Rivera could for a time count again on that conservative mood. He believed that only an authoritarian system could preside over Spain’s modernization. The succeeding years, particularly after the flight of the King, were again tumultuous, despite their orderly beginning. Thus many came to believe that Primo de Rivera’s work could be continued, in a more well-regulated manner; while others also sought authority, since they feared the future. For the time being, however, the destiny of Spain was in the hands of those who welcomed change and the opportunities it offered.

6
    The events of May 1931 gave to the new republican government a warning of the threats which seemed likely to beset it from both Left and Right. But the ministers knew nothing of the details of the monarchists’ plans: rumours, of course, there were, and verbal menaces. Nor did they take the anarchists as seriously as they should have done. They attributed the church burnings to the provocation of the monarchists. On 28 June, an election was held which suggested that the majority of the people were behind the régime. This, for a constituent Cortes, was held on the understanding that one member would represent about 50,000 male votes. They were the fairest elections that had been held in Spain. As a result, there were elected 117 socialists (a true reflection of the growth in socialist numbers during the weeks since April); 59