José
Sanjurjo
was
born in Spain in 1872. He joined the Spanish
Army and served in Morocco
where he reached the rank
of lieutenant general.
When he
returned to Spain he became director of the Civil
Guard. An opponent of Alfonso
XIII he
supported the establishment of the Second Republic in 1931. However,
he was not rewarded by President Manuel
Azaña who
demoted him to the post of chief of the Customs Guards.
In 1932 Sanjuro led an
attempted military coup against the government. He was arrested, tried,
and sentenced to death. This was later commuted to life in prison
and in 1934 he was released and sent into exile.
In February 1936 the Popular
Front government came to power. The New government immediately
upset the conservatives by releasing 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 Sanjurgo, Emilio
Mola,
Francisco
Franco and Gonzalo
Queipo de Llano,
began plotting to overthrow the Popular Front
government. This resulted in the outbreak of the Spanish
Civil War on 17th July, 1936.
On 20th July 1936 Sanjuro
was killed when his plane crashed. When General Emilio
Mola was
also killed in an aircraft accident, rumours began to circulate that
General Francisco
Franco was responsible
for the deaths of his two fellow leaders. However, no evidence has
ever been found to substantiate this accusation.
(1)
Franz
Borkenau, Spanish Cockpit: An Eyewitness Account of the Political
and Social Conflicts of the Political and Social Conflicts of the
Spanish Civil War (1937)
The
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