Chapter XLVIII: The Best Laid Plans.
The joint army-navy exercises ordered by the Spanish government in the spring 1936 have gone down in history as a terrible error, an awful mistake by President Azaña that, had it been avoided, would have saved Spain much bloodshed further down the line. While such an analysis has a severe flaw, confusing the trigger for an event and the pressures and factors that made the event inevitable, it does hit the point that the exercises gave the Republic's enemies a chance to legitimately meet up and plan away from prying eyes, even if it also forced some of them to act earlier than they wished. This last point leads on to a third, more subtle explanation; that Azaña's decision did indeed make the war inevitable, but not for the conventional reasons. It can be argued that had their been no exercises there would have been no opportunity for Franco's coup plot to happen and instead the more thorough plan of Mola and his British 'advisers' would have been implemented at a later date, the longer preparation making the coup more likely to succeed thus bypassing the civil war. The key point of this third analysis is that a plot or coup of some kind was inevitable, therefore they only was to avoid a war would be the total crushing or complete success of the coup. Whether this is a damning indictment of the actions of the government or the intolerance of the armed forces depends as much upon your political alignment as any appraisal of events.
For all that the exercises were welcomed at the time as a master stroke, the government keen on a chance to get the armed forces out of the towns and cities of the mainland and off into the desert, far away from the rising tensions. That there was such bad blood between the government and its own military was partly political, a reactionary army and a radical left cabinet were never going to get on well, and partly due to personality. Azaña was bitterly distrusted by the military, his previous tenure in government had seen a harsh 're-organisation' of the army, with defence academies closed, troop numbers cut and many reserve roles transferred to the political militias. Indeed in an ironic twist of fate the Carlist militias so active in the coup and following war had been armed and trained under that Azaña initiative. Therefore it is easy to see why the idea of sending the army and navy to Africa for a month would seem attractive, however it also shows how ill informed the government was about its own military; had there been doubts about the generals the exercises would never have happened. Yet, as is often the case, the contempt of Azaña and the Popular Front leadership for the military lead them to consistently under-estimate the army and their political allies, dismissing their obvious discontent as reactionary moaning, which in many cases it was but that did not make it unimportant or less dangerous to the country's stability.
Franco's plan was essentially simple, the final climactic day of the exercises was scheduled for an amphibious assault, modelled on the British attack at Tobruk, and Franco simply planned to re-direct the attack from an empty African beach to the ports of Southern Spain. As a plan it had only one flaw and unfortunately it was a very significant one; it was assumed that the
Armarda was as solidly behind the coup as the
Ejército. In fairness the higher ranks of the navy were indeed behind the coup, the problem would come from the lower ranks of the fleet where socialist tendencies were far stronger, however this was of little comfort to the Generals and their various 'advisers' as Franco's plans unravelled. Problems began almost the moment after the change of direction was announced, the 'other ranks' rapidly working out their could only be one reason why the ships full of soldiers were heading towards the mainland not the exercise ground. While the majority of crews joined the coup, the Admirals had carefully selected the ships for the exercise for that very reason, there was enough resistance to let the loyalists transmit several radio messages to the rest of the fleet before being captured.
This early failure, while delaying the actual departure by less than an hour, nevertheless presented several considerable and inter-linked problems. Firstly it had to be assumed the government would become aware of the plot, forcing the mainland contingent to act ahead of schedule before government counter-measures could be put into effect. This lead to the second problem; there would not be enough forces to hit all the coup targets at once, reducing the desired dis-orientating effect that was so vital. Finally the transit from the exercise ground to Spain would take several hours, during which the unarmed troop ships would be vulnerable to the remainder of the fleet, not least the
Espana class battleship
Jaime I and her escorts.
Jaime I, the only fully functional battleship in the Spanish navy, her sister ship Espana having been laid up for disposal, ironically on President Azaña's orders during his last spell in power. While Espana would be rushed back into service by the Republicans at the Bilbao yards, Jaime I would spend the early part of the war walking a fine line; too powerful to sit idle but too valuable to risk losing. As the smallest dreadnoughts ever commissioned, at a mere 460ft long and less than 16,500 tons displacement they were shorter and barely heavier than the Canarias, the new County-class heavy cruiser that had defected to the Monarchists at the start of the coup. Despite carrying a notional armour and gunnery advantage, eight 12" guns to the Canaris' eight 8", it was the opinion of the Royal Navy that the superior speed, accuracy and more modern armour of the County-class would make the fight far nearer even, particularly given the undoubted degradation of the Jaime I during years of 'cost-saving' low to zero maintenance. Whether this was accurate or merely nationalistic bravado would be tested later in the war.
That last point deserves a brief detour, for it is an excellent demonstration of the limits of foreign intervention at that point. Either of the two foreign powers could easily have protected the rebel transports; the local Royal Navy contingent, Force H harboured in Gibraltar with the two battlecruisers HMS
Renown and HMS
Repulse, was more than a match for the Republican fleet on it's own. The German contingent, while lacking a large fleet to call on, could have used the the large contingent of 'Lufthansa' airliners (and their Luftwaffe trained pilots) in Spain to shadow the main fleet and provide long range warning for the transports. Yet these offers, although discussed in private, were never made and the bulk of the Army of Africa would have to wait for suitable air transport to be arranged, a delay that would prove fatal. There is a not inconsiderable irony in this; the offers were not made due to fear of being associated with a failed coup, yet it was arguably the lack of that very support that made the coup fail.
When considering that above it is not surprising that the actual coup, or as some would later describe it the first day of the Spanish Civil War, did not go as well as hoped. The commanders still in Spain were forced to divert their remaining forces to cover the missing Army of Africa, concentrating on key governmental and industrial targets rather than the planned wide-scale revolt. While this concentration of force was successful in it's limited aims; Seville, Barcelona and ,vitally, the capital Madrid all fell to the rebels on the first day, the lack of success in the Central/South West of the country and the volatile Basque-country was marked. It is arguable that it was the key factor in prompting the government to flee Madrid rather than surrender to the swarms of Carlist militias that had overwhelmed the few 'Assault Guard' police units that had stayed loyal to the government. As it was the defiance of Valencia and Bilbao provided a safe refugee to flee to and a base from which the Popular Front leaders could rally their supporters. Regardless, as the dust settled on that first fateful day it was clear that while the coup had not succeeded it also had neither failed nor been put down.
As this map shows the key Republican holdouts were in the Basque country, particularly the iron, steel and shipbuilding regions of Bilbao, the mainly agricultural belt running from Badajoz to Almería and the key city of Valencia which became the new Republican capital. Rebel, or as they soon styled themselves Monarchists, success were obviously the key cities of Madrid, Seville and Barcelona, the last in the fact of considerable resistance from the Catalan nationalists who rapidly declared for the pro-devolution Republicans.
More surprising perhaps is the success in La Coruna and Huelva, both heavily industrial areas that should have been pro-Republican strongholds. In both of those cases it was the actions of the major employers, the Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval in Ferrol (La Coruna) and the large copper mines such as Rio Tinto in Huelva, that helped tip the balance, providing bases and equipment to the Monarchist militias and keeping anarchist and socialist trade union leader distracted until it was too late. With such actions these firms became committed to the Monarchist cause, a highly political act from firms that had traditionally avoided overtly siding with any faction in Spain. Whether this was influence from London on the British owners and managers of these firms, a rumour MI6 did nothing to deny as it strengthened the British negotiating position, or merely foresight of what a left leaning Republican government would do, as evidenced by the enforced nationalisations in Bilbao later in the year, is still uncertain as many relevant files remain sealed.
What is certain is that the rumours about the Britain involvement were as important as any reality, as the aftershocks of the coup spread throughout Europe and the world there would be little chance of Britain being able to convince everybody of having 'clean hands' over the incident.
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