José
Maria Gil Robles was
born in Salamanca in 1898. After university he became a journalist
with Catholic daily newspaper, El Debate.
He was active in right-wing politics and was a member of Partido Social
Popular.
Gil Robles was a supporter
of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera.
After the establishment of the Second Republic in April 1931 he joined
Accion Nacional and was elected to the Cortes
for Salamanca.
On 28th February, 1933,
Gil Robles helped to establish the Confederatión
Espanola de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA), out of a collection
of small right-wing parties opposed to the policies of Manuel
Azaña and
his Republican government.
In the 1933 elections,
the CEDA won the majority of seats in the Cortes.
President Niceto
Alcalá Zamora refused
to ask Gil Robles to form a government. However, seven members of
the CEDA served as ministers during the next three years. This included
Gil Robles, who held the post of Minister of War.
On 15th January 1936, Manuel
Azaña helped
to establish a coalition
of parties on the political left to fight the national elections
due to take place the following month. This included the Socialist
Party (PSOE), Communist Party (PCE)
and the Republican Union Party.
The Popular
Front, as the coalition became known, advocated the restoration
of Catalan autonomy, amnesty for political prisoners, agrarian reform,
an end to political blacklists and the payment of damages for property
owners who suffered during the revolt of 1934. The Anarchists
refused to support the coalition and instead urged people not to vote.
Right-wing groups in Spain
formed the National Front. This included the CEDA
and the Carlists. The Falange
Española did not officially join but most of its members
supported the aims of the National Front.
The Spanish people voted
on Sunday, 16th February, 1936. Out of a possible 13.5 million voters,
over 9,870,000 participated in the 1936
General Election. 4,654,116 people (34.3) voted for the Popular
Front, whereas the National Front obtained 4,503,505 (33.2) and the
centre parties got 526,615 (5.4). The Popular Front, with 263 seats
out of the 473 in the Cortes
formed the new government.
The Popular Front government
immediately upset the conservatives by realizing all left-wing political
prisoners. The government also introduced agrarian reforms that penalized
the landed aristocracy. Other measures included transferring right-wing
military leaders such as Francisco
Franco to posts
outside Spain, outlawing the Falange Española
and granting Catalonia political and administrative autonomy.
As a result of these measures
the wealthy took vast sums of capital out of the country. This created
an economic crisis and the value of the peseta declined which damaged
trade and tourism. With prices rising workers demanded higher wages.
This led to a series of strikes in Spain.
On
the 10th May 1936 the conservative Niceto
Alcala Zamora was
ousted as president and replaced by the left-wing Manuel
Azaña.
Soon afterwards Spanish Army officers, including Emilio
Mola,
Francisco
Franco and José
Sanjurjo,
began plotting to overthrow the Popular Front government. This resulted
in the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
on 17th July, 1936.
Gil Robles supported the
Nationalist
Army during the
war. He was unwilling to struggle with General Francisco
Franco
for power and in April 1937
announced the dissolution of the CEDA.
At the end of the Civil
War he went into exile. He returned in the 1960s and became one of
the leaders of the Spanish Christian Democracy.
José
Maria Gil Robles died
in 1980.
(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.
Gil Robles demanded and was granted a place
in the new government of Alejandro Lerroux. Not only a place but the
place he wanted - the Ministry of War. As war minister he ruled with
an iron hand. Violence disappeared from Spain for the next year. The
Left, stung by its defeat of October, abandoned force as a weapon
and fell back on parliamentary obstruction. The repressive measures
adopted by the government during the revolt was the peg upon which
the Left Wingers hung their new program of attack.
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