Edward
Knoblaugh
was
a American journalist working for Associated Press
in Madrid
who went to Spain before the outbreak of
the Spanish
Civil War. While in Spain
he carried out
interviews with several leading politicians including Julián
Besteiro, José
Calvo Sotelo,
Niceto
Alcalá Zamora,
José
Maria Gil Robles,
José
Antonio Primo de Rivera
and Francisco
Largo Caballero.
Knoblaugh left
Spain
during the Spanish
Civil War. On his return to the United States
he published Correspondent in Spain
(1937). Knoblaugh also worked as a journalist during the Second
World War.
(1)
Edward
Knoblaugh, Correspondent
in Spain (1937)
Azana's government had
a difficult time maintaining order. There was a rash of strikes, violence,
church burnings and other disorders. Virtually all the news coming
out of Spain during my first nine months there dealt with these disorders.
Each day would see some new form of violence-some phase of industry
tied up or some blood spilled. Rex Smith, then bureau manager of the
Associated Press in Madrid, once quite appropriately remarked that
it might save us time and cable tolls if we had stereotyped forms
made for New York and referred to them by number in indicating repetitions
of violence.
The Azana government found
itself obliged to use strong measures to curb the disorders. One of
these incidents caused Azana's overthrow. Thirteen anarchists, having
barricaded themselves in
a cafe called Casa de Seis Dedos in the little village of Casas Viejas,
fired on the police. The head of the Casas Viejas constabulary asked
Madrid for instructions. The Ministry of Interior sent orders to the
effect that the place should be cleaned up: "we want neither
prisoners nor wounded." The police took these orders literally.
Not one of the thirteen escaped alive
The extreme Left took
up Casas Viejas as their war cry the thirteen men who had been killed
by police bullets became martyrs. Public opinion was so aroused that,
following Spanish tradition, it ended in reaction. The Right-Centre
coalition of the then unknown newspaperman, Jose Maria Gil Robles,
carried the November, 1933, elections in a
sweeping upset. Azana was ousted. Gil Robles, by virtue of heading
the largest parliamentary minority - the Popular Action group with
112 of the 473 Cortes votes - was first in line to succeed him. But
President Niceto Alcala Zamora, although a strong Catholic, did not
deem it wise to encourage a Right trend in parliament at that time.
Instead, he named Lerroux, the veteran, to the post of Premier.
(2)
Edward
Knoblaugh,
Correspondent in Spain (1937)
Cadiz, Caceres, Huelva, Sevilla, Granada and
Cordoba were Franco's, as was the whole northern area of Spain from
the Guadarrama mountains just north of Madrid to the Bay of Biscay,
save a small strip of the Basque and Asturian coast. Huesca, Zaragoza
and Teruel marked his lines on the east. He was in possession of the
entire area bordering the Portuguese frontier on the west except a
narrow strip in the vicinity of Badajoz.
In Madrid, Barcelona and
Valencia, however, Franco's revolt had been crushed with a thoroughness
that portended
ill for the success of his movement. They were the three largest cities
of Spain, and had been the key-points of the
rebellion. Lack of coordination in Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona,
was what caused the rebellion to miss fire there.
The government, having, in desperation, overruled President Azana
and passed out arms to the workers, seemed as though it would turn
the tables on the insurgent leader.
In that first urgent need
for militant manpower to offset the traditional apathy of the peace-loving
masses, 40,000 common prisoners had been released on their promise
to carry arms, and these, with some 25,000 recently pardoned
political prisoners gambling for continued freedom, had stiffened
the disorganized Loyalist forces.
But the decision of Commander
Martinez Monje, chief of the Valencia garrison, to throw his support
to the government, was the deciding factor in the issue at that time.
For ten days Commander Monje held his troops in their barracks while
he carefully weighed the odds. When the Montana barracks fell before
the militia in Madrid, and the Barcelona revolt had been crushed,
Monje decided Franco's chances were slim and cast his lot with the
government. Franco must have cursed the thought of Monje many times
since.
(3)
Edward
Knoblaugh,
Correspondent in Spain (1937)
Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the former
dictator and organizer of the Spanish Nationalist Syndicalist Party,
was one of those executed in the general "liquidation" of
Rightist leaders at the outset of the war. Independence of
thought and action had characterized Primo's brilliant political career.
He declined to ally himself with the Gil Robles coalition in the 1936
elections although he knew that his refusal virtually assured defeat
for the National Syndicalists. Primo bitterly resented the fact that
this party frequently was referred to as "fascist." The
National Syndicalists supported the Catholic Church but apart from
the religious issue their policies were almost identical with those
of the C.N.T.
The 33-year-old political
leader, although of slight physical build, had gained a reputation
as a fighter during his one term as deputy to the Cortes. When heckled
during his impassioned pleas for social reform or when some slurring
remark on the memory of his dead father was passed by a critic of
the Rivera administration, young Primo had often scrambled over the
benches of the chamber and engaged in hand-to-hand affairs with fellow
deputies. Soon after the February elections Primo was imprisoned for
his caustic criticism of the new regime. In public speeches and editorials
in his weekly newspaper Primo declared that the "failure of the
government to prevent destruction of Rightist property or to punish
those responsible for the destruction demonstrated the impotency of
the new Popular
Front government to govern."
Inasmuch as many of his
attacks had been leveled directly at the Anarchists, he was one of
the first to be marked for
death by the CNT-FAI, following the outbreak of the war.
The government, realizing
that Primo enjoyed considerable popularity in many quarters abroad,
made an effort to save his life. Largo Caballero took a particular
interest in the case because word had been sent him that his young
son, whose name I never secured, was being held as a hostage by the
Rebels and that Primo's death would mean the boy's death. Primo was
spirited incognito to Alicante after the government had caused reports
to be circulated that he had died in prison, but the ruse failed.
The Anarchists traced Primo to his secret dungeon cell in the Alicante
prison and threatened to storm the prison unless he was delivered
to them. They finally agreed to the pleas of the Governor of Alicante
that Primo be given trial. He was tried. The trial was such a farce
that correspondents were not permitted to attend the sessions or to
cable anything of the proceedings after the first day.
Primo was executed November
20, 1936, by a militia firing squad. The government did everything
possible to prevent news of the execution from reaching abroad but
it leaked out through Gibraltar several days later and we were permitted
to confirm it. Largo went into mourning. We supposed he had heard
his boy had been shot.
(4)
Edward
Knoblaugh,
Correspondent in Spain (1937)
I made a tour of the Barcelona churches and
Rightist centers which the Left extremists had pillaged and burned
since my previous visit. A large number of churches and convents
had been destroyed during the demonstrations following the Left election
victory in February. The work of destruction had been completed during
the week preceding my arrival. Only the blackened walls remained of
the historic religious buildings. The statues and paintings had been
destroyed or removed, the altars ripped out, the stained-glass windows
broken. The burial vaults in the floors of some of the churches had
been forced open and the century-old mummified bodies of nuns and
priests had been removed from their mouldy resting-places. On the
steps of the Carmelite church were arrayed a dozen or more of the
skeletons of nuns in standing and reclining postures.
The red and black flag
of the Anarchists was everywhere - hung from balconies, suspended
from cords strung across
the thoroughfares and fastened to sticks wired to the fronts of commandeered
automobiles. No attempt was being made to police the city. Scowling
through their week-old beards, the militia, dressed in blue overalls
or simply in denim trousers and dirty shirts, with red and black neckerchiefs
about their throats, were as thick as flies. Lounging here
and there or speeding through the streets in their requisitioned private
cars with the black snouts of submachine guns protruding over the
window sills, these Catalonian Anarchists looked fierce enough to
startle even the directors of a Hollywood mob scene. Occasionally
a shot was heard as a rifle in inexperienced hands was discharged.
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