His Excellency Generalísimo Francisco Franco
Official portait of Francisco Franco, in 1970.
Caudillo of Spain Head of State
In office 1 April 1939 – 20 November 1975
Preceded by	Manuel Azaña*
Succeeded by	Alejandro Rodríguez de Valcárcel**
68th Prime Minister of Spain
In office 30 January 1938 – 8 June 1973
Vice President	Francisco Gómez-Jordana Sousa Agustín Muñoz Grandes Luis Carrero Blanco
Preceded by	Juan Negrín
Succeeded by	Luis Carrero Blanco
Personal details
Born	Francisco Franco y Bahamonde (1892-12-04)4 December 1892 Ferrol, Galicia, Spain
Died	20 November 1975(1975-11-20) (aged 82) Madrid, Spain
Resting place	Valley of the Fallen 40°38′31″N 4°09′19″W / 40.641944°N 4.155278°W / 40.641944; -4.155278
Nationality	Spanish
Political party	FET y de las JONS
Spouse(s)	Carmen Polo
Children	María del Carmen
Residence	El Pardo, Madrid
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	Spain Kingdom of Spain (1907–1931)  Spanish Republic (1931–1936)  Spanish State (1936–1947)  Kingdom of Spain (1947–1975)
Service/branch	Spanish Armed Forces
Years of service	1907–1975
Rank	Chief of the General Staff
Commands	All (Generalissimo/supreme commander)
Battles/wars	Rif War Spanish Civil War
Awards	.
*As President ** For the handover to Juan Carlos I (King of Spain) *** Formally as "Leader of the Government of Spain"

Francisco Franco y Bahamonde, better known under the name of Franco, (Spanish: [fɾanˈθisko ˈfɾaŋko]; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general, dictator and the leader of the Nationalist military rebellion in the Spanish Civil War, and totalitarian head of state of Spain, from October 1936 (as a unified nation from 1939 onwards) until his death in November 1975. He came to power while recognizing the principles of the far-right Falange movement, although this was for propaganda reasons, as he belonged to no political party before becoming Head of State. As head of state, Franco used the titles Caudillo de España and Generalísimo, but also was called formally as His Excellency, The Head of State.

Franco was from a military family, and although originally intent on entering the Spanish Navy, he instead became a soldier. He participated in the Rif War in Morocco, becoming the youngest general in Europe by 1926. After returning to the Spanish mainland, he saw service suppressing an anarchist-led strike in 1934, defending the stability of Alcalá-Zamora's conservative government. Following the formation of a Popular Front government, made up of various left-wing factions, instability heightened. Violence between militant groups rose sharply with assassination of conservative parliamentary leader José Calvo Sotelo, in retaliation for the killing of José Castillo.^[1] Franco and his co-conspirators used Calvo's death as their pretext for war, as they had already initiated the plan for their rebellion.^[2]

Franco and the military participated in a coup d'état against the Popular Front government. The coup failed and evolved into the Spanish Civil War, during which Franco emerged as the leader of the Nationalists against the Popular Front government. After winning the civil war with military aid from Italy and Germany as exemplified in the Bombing of Guernica — while the Soviet Union and various Internationalists aided the Republicans —, he dissolved the Spanish Parliament. He then established a right-wing authoritarian regime and was de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain, that lasted until 1978, when a new constitution was drafted. During World War II, Franco officially maintained a policy of non-belligerency and later of neutrality, in part because Spain had not recovered from the considerable damage of the civil war. However, he supported the volunteer Blue Division that fought with the Axis on the Eastern Front. He was initially disliked by Cuban Fulgencio Batista, who, during World War II, had suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American assault on Spain in order to overthrow Franco's regime.^[3]

After the end of World War II, Franco maintained his control in Spain through the implementation of austere measures: the systematic suppression of dissident views through censorship and coercion,^[4][5] the imprisonment of ideologically opposed enemies in concentration camps (1936–1947) throughout the country (such as Los Merinales in Seville, San Marcos in León, Castuera in Extremadura, and Miranda de Ebro),^[6] the implementation of forced labor in prisons,^[7] and the use of the death penalty and heavy prison sentences as deterrents for his ideological enemies.^[8] During the Cold War, the United States established a diplomatic and trade alliance with Spain, due to Franco's harsh anti-Communist policy. American President Richard Nixon toasted Franco,^[9] and, after Franco's death, stated: "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States."^[10] After his death, Spain gradually began its transition to democracy. Today, pre-constitutional symbols from the Franco regime—such as the national coat of arms or flag with the Imperial Eagle—are banned by law in Spain.^[11]

Early life[link]

Francisco Franco was born at 12:30 p.m. on 4 December 1892 at number 108 Calle Frutos Saavedra, Ferrol (currently known as Calle María), in the city's old town. He was baptised on 17 December at the military church of San Francisco with the baptismal names Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo: Francisco for his paternal grandfather, Paulino for his godfather, Hermenegildo for his maternal grandmother and godmother and Teódulo for the saint day of his birth.

His father's ancestry originated in Andalucia.^{[note 1]} Since relocating to Galicia, his father's family was strongly involved in the Spanish Navy and over two centuries produced naval officers for six generations uninterrupted, right down to Franco's father Nicolás Franco y Salgado-A (22 November 1855 – 22 February 1942). His mother was María del Pilar Bahamonde y Pardo de Andrade (1865 – 28 February 1934), and his parents married in 1890. The young Franco spent much of his childhood with his two brothers, Nicolás (Ferrol, 1891–1977), a naval officer and diplomat who in time was married to María Isabel Pascual del Pobil y Ravello, and Ramón , and his two sisters, María del Pilar (Ferrol, 1894 – Madrid, 1989), later wife of Alonso Jaráiz y Jeréz, and María de la Paz (Ferrol, 1899 – Ferrol, 1900).

Military career[link]

Rif War and rise through the ranks[link]

Francisco was to follow his father into the Navy but as a result of the Spanish-American War the country lost much of its navy as well as most of its colonies. Not needing more officers, entry into the Naval Academy was closed from 1906 to 1913. To his father's chagrin, he decided to join the Spanish Army. In 1907, he entered the Infantry Academy in Toledo, from which he graduated in 1910. He was commissioned as a lieutenant. Two years later, he obtained a commission to Morocco. Spanish efforts to physically occupy their new African protectorate provoked the protracted Rif War (from 1909 to 1927) with native Moroccans. Tactics at the time resulted in heavy losses among Spanish military officers, but also gave the chance of earning promotion through merit. It was said that officers would get either la caja o la faja (a box or a girdle's sash). Franco soon gained a reputation as a good officer. He joined the newly formed regulares, colonial native troops with Spanish officers, who acted as shock troops.

In 1916, at the age of 23 and already a captain, he was badly wounded in a skirmish at El Biutz and possibly lost a testicle.^[13] His survival marked him permanently in the eyes of the native troops as a man of baraka (good luck). He was also recommended unsuccessfully for Spain's highest honor for gallantry, the coveted Cruz Laureada de San Fernando. Instead, he was promoted to major field grade officer in the Spanish Army. From 1917 to 1920, he was posted on the Spanish mainland. That last year, Lieutenant Colonel José Millán Astray, a histrionic but charismatic officer, founded the Spanish Foreign Legion, along similar lines to the French Foreign Legion. Franco became the Legion's second-in-command and returned to Africa. On 24 July 1921, the poorly commanded and overextended Spanish Army suffered a crushing defeat at Annual at the hands of the Rif tribes led by the Abd el-Krim brothers. The Legion symbolically, if not materially, saved the Spanish enclave of Melilla after a three-day forced march led by Franco. In 1923, already a lieutenant colonel, he was made commander of the Legion.

The same year, he married María del Carmen Polo y Martínez-Valdès; they had one child, a daughter, María del Carmen, born in 1926.^[14] As a special mark of honor, his best man (padrino) at the wedding was King Alfonso XIII, a fact that would mark him during the Republic as a monarchical officer. Promoted to colonel, Franco led the first wave of troops ashore at Al Hoceima in 1925. This landing in the heartland of Abd el-Krim's tribe, combined with the French invasion from the south, spelled the beginning of the end for the short-lived Republic of the Rif. Becoming the youngest general in Spain in 1926, Franco was appointed in 1928 director of the newly created General Military Academy of Zaragoza, a new college for all Army cadets, replacing the former separate institutions for young men seeking to become officers in infantry, cavalry, artillery, and other branches of the army.

During the Second Spanish Republic[link]

With the fall of the monarchy in 1932, in keeping with his long-standing apolitical record^{[citation needed]}, Franco did not take any notable stand. But the closing of the Academy, in June, by War Minister Manuel Azaña, provoked his first clash with the Spanish Republic. Azaña found Franco's farewell speech to the cadets^[15] insulting. For six months, Franco was without a post and under surveillance.

Franco was a subscriber to Acción Española, an ultra-right wing monarchist theoretical journal, and a firm believer in the Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy - or contubernio, (filthy cohabitation), 'one of Franco's favourite words'; a conspiracy in which Jews and Freemasons, and leftists, notionally sought the destruction of Christian Europe, with Spain as a principal target. ^[16]

On 5 February 1932, he was given a command in A Coruña. Franco avoided involvement in José Sanjurjo's attempted coup that year, and even wrote a hostile letter to Sanjurjo expressing his anger over the attempt. As a side result of Azaña's military reform, in January 1933, Franco was relegated from the first to the 24th in the list of Brigadiers; conversely, the same year (17 February), he was given the military command of the Balearic Islands: a post above his rank.

New elections held in October 1933 resulted in a center-right majority. In opposition to this government, a revolutionary movement broke out 5 October 1934. This uprising was rapidly quelled in most of the country, but gained a stronghold in Asturias, with the support of the miners' unions. Franco, already general of a Division and aide to the war minister, Diego Hidalgo, was put in command of the operations directed to suppress the insurgency. The forces of the Army in Africa carried this out, with General Eduardo López Ochoa as commander in the field. After two weeks of heavy fighting (and a death toll estimated between 1,200 and 2,000), the rebellion was suppressed.

The insurgency in Asturias sharpened the antagonism between Left and Right. Franco and López Ochoa—who, prior to the campaign in Asturias, was seen as a left-leaning officer^{[citation needed]} emerged as officers prepared to use 'troops against Spanish civilians as if they were a foreign enemy'.^[17] Franco did not hesitate to ship Moorish merecenaries to fight in Asturias and described the rebelion to a journalist in Oviedo as, 'a frontier war and its fronts are socialism, communism and whatever attacks civilization in order to replace it with barbarism.' Though the colonial units sent to the north by Franco consisted of the Spanish Foreign Legion and the Moroccan mercenaries of the Regulares Indigenas, the right wing press portrayed the Asturian rebels in xenophobic terms as lackeys of a foreign Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. ^[18] At the start of the Civil War, López Ochoa was assassinated. Some time after these events, Franco was briefly commander-in-chief of the Army of Africa (from 15 February onwards), and from 19 May 1935 on, Chief of the General Staff.

General election of 1936[link]

After the ruling centre-right coalition collapsed amid the Straperlo corruption scandal, new elections were scheduled. Two wide coalitions formed: the Popular Front on the left, ranging from Republican Union Party to Communists, and the Frente Nacional on the right, ranging from the center radicals to the conservative Carlists. On 16 February 1936, the left won by a narrow margin.^[19] Growing political bitterness surfaced again. The government and its supporters, the Popular Front, had launched a campaign against the Opposition whom they accused of plotting against the Republic.^{[citation needed]} According to the right wing opposition, the real enemies of the Republic were not on the Right but on the Left; Spain was in imminent danger of falling under a Communist dictatorship, and therefore by fighting the democratically elected Popular Front they, the opposition, were merely doing their duty in defence of law and order and of the freedom and the fundamental rights of the Spanish people.^[20]

The days after the election were marked by near-chaotic circumstances.^{[citation needed]}

On 23 February, Franco was sent to the distant Canary Islands to serve as the islands' military commander, a position in which he had few troops under his command.^{[citation needed]} Meanwhile, a conspiracy led by Emilio Mola was taking shape.^{[citation needed]} In June, Franco was contacted and a secret meeting was held in Tenerife's La Esperanza Forest to discuss a military coup. (An obelisk commemorating this historic meeting can be found in a clearing at Las Raíces.)

Outwardly, Franco maintained an ambiguous attitude almost up until July. On 23 June 1936, he wrote to the head of the government, Casares Quiroga, offering to quell the discontent in the Spanish Republican Army, but was not answered.^{[citation needed]} The other rebels were determined to go ahead, con Paquito o sin Paquito (with Franco or without him), as it was put by José Sanjurjo, the honorary leader of the military uprising. After various postponements, 18 July was fixed as the date of the uprising. The situation reached a point of no return and, as presented to Franco by Mola, the coup was unavoidable and he had to choose a side. He decided to join the rebels and was given the task of commanding the Army of Africa. A privately owned DH 89 De Havilland Dragon Rapide, flown by two British MI6 agents, Cecil Bebb and Hugh Pollard,^[21] was chartered in England 11 July to take Franco to Africa.

The assassination of the right-wing opposition leader José Calvo Sotelo by government police troops, possibly acting on their own in retaliation for the murder of José Castillo, precipitated the uprising^[22]. On 17 July one day earlier than planned, the African Army rebelled, detaining their commanders. On 18 July, Franco published a manifesto^[23] and left for Africa, where he arrived the next day to take command.

A week later, the rebels, who soon called themselves the Nationalists, controlled a third of Spain, but most navy units remained under control of the Republican loyalist forces, which left Franco isolated. The coup had failed, but the Spanish Civil War had begun.

From the Spanish Civil War to World War II[link]

The Spanish Civil War began in July 1936 and officially ended with Franco's victory in April 1939, leaving 190,000^[24] to 500,000^[25] dead. Despite the Non-Intervention Agreement of August 1936, the war was marked by foreign intervention on behalf of both sides, leading to international repercussions. The nationalist side was supported by Fascist Italy, which sent the Corpo Truppe Volontarie, and later by Nazi Germany, which assisted with the Condor Legion. The United Kingdom and France strictly adhered to the arms embargo,^{[citation needed]} provoking dissensions within the French Popular Front coalition led by Léon Blum, but the Republican side was nonetheless supported by the Soviet Union and volunteers fighting in the International Brigades (see for example Ken Loach's Land and Freedom).

Because Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin used the war as a testing ground for modern warfare, some historians, such as Ernst Nolte, have considered the Spanish Civil War, along with World War II, part of a "European Civil War" lasting from 1936 to 1945 and characterized mainly as a left/right ideological conflict. However, this interpretation has not found acceptance among most historians, who consider the Spanish Civil War and Second World War to be two distinct conflicts. Among other things, they point to the political heterogeneity on both sides (See Spanish Civil War: other factions) and criticize a monolithic interpretation which overlooks the local nuances of Spanish history.

The first months[link]

Despite Franco's having no money, while the state treasury was in Madrid with the government, there was an organized economic lobby in London looking after his financial needs^{[citation needed]} with Lisbon as their operational base. Eventually, he was to receive important help from his economic and diplomatic boosters abroad.^{[citation needed]}

Following the 18 July 1936, pronunciamiento, Franco assumed the leadership of the 30,000 soldiers of the Spanish Army of Africa. The first days of the insurgency were marked with a serious need to secure control over the Spanish Moroccan Protectorate. On one side, Franco managed to win the support of the natives and their (nominal) authorities, and, on the other, to ensure his control over the army. This led to the summary execution of some 200 senior officers loyal to the Republic (one of them his own cousin). Also his loyal bodyguard was shot by a man known as Manuel Blanco.^[26] Franco's first problem was how to move his troops to the Iberian Peninsula, since most units of the Navy had remained in control of the Republic and were blocking the Strait of Gibraltar. He requested help from Benito Mussolini, who responded with an unconditional offer of arms and planes; in Germany, Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr military intelligence, persuaded Hitler to also support the Nationalists. From 20 July onward, Franco was able, with a small group of 22 mainly German Junkers Ju 52 airplanes, to initiate an air bridge to Seville, where his troops helped to ensure the rebel control of the city. Through representatives, he started to negotiate with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy for more military support, and above all for more airplanes. Negotiations were successful with the last two on 25 July and airplanes began to arrive in Tetouan on 2 August. On 5 August Franco was able to break the blockade with the newly arrived air support, successfully deploying a ship convoy with some 2,000 soldiers.

In early August, the situation in western Andalusia was stable enough to allow him to organize a column (some 15,000 men at its height), under the command of then Lieutenant-Colonel Juan Yagüe, which would march through Extremadura towards Madrid. On 11 August Mérida was taken, and on 15 August Badajoz, thus joining both nationalist-controlled areas. Additionally, Mussolini ordered a voluntary army, the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV) of some 12,000 Italians of fully motorized units to Seville and Hitler added to them a professional squadron from the Luftwaffe (2JG/88) with about 24 planes. All these planes had the Nationalist Spanish insignia painted on them, but were flown by Italian and German troops. The backbone of Franco's aviation in those days were the Italian SM.79 and SM.81 bombers, the biplane Fiat CR.32 fighter and the German Junkers Ju 52 cargo-bomber and the Heinkel He 51 biplane fighter.

On 21 September, with the head of the column at the town of Maqueda (some 80 km away from Madrid), Franco ordered a detour to free the besieged garrison at the Alcázar of Toledo, which was achieved 27 September. This controversial decision gave the Popular Front time to strengthen its defenses in Madrid and hold the city that year but was an important morale and propaganda success.

Rise to power[link]

The designated leader of the uprising, Gen. José Sanjurjo died on 20 July 1936 in an airplane crash. Therefore, in the nationalist zone, "Political life ceased."^[27] Initially, only military command mattered; this was divided into regional commands (Emilio Mola in the North, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano in Seville commanding Andalusia, Franco with an independent command and Miguel Cabanellas in Zaragoza commanding Aragon). The Spanish Army of Morocco itself was split into two columns, one commanded by General Juan Yagüe and the other commanded by Colonel José Varela.

From 24 July, a coordinating junta was established, based at Burgos. Nominally led by Cabanellas, as the most senior general,^[28] it initially included Mola, three other generals, and two colonels; Franco was later added in early August.^[29] On 21 September it was decided that Franco was to be commander-in-chief (this unified command was opposed only by Cabanellas),^[30] and, after some discussion, with no more than a lukewarm agreement from Queipo de Llano and from Mola, also head of government.^[31] He was, doubtlessly, helped to this primacy by the fact that, in late July, Hitler had decided that all of Germany's aid to the nationalists would go to Franco.^[32]

Mola considered Franco as unfit and not part of the initial rebel group.^{[citation needed]} But Mola himself had been somewhat discredited as the main planner of the attempted coup that had now degenerated into a civil war, and was strongly identified with the Carlists monarchists and not at all with the Falange, a party with Fascist leanings and connections ("phalanx", a far-right Spanish political party founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera), nor did he have good relations with Germany; Queipo de Llano and Cabanellas had both previously rebelled against the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera and were therefore discredited in some nationalist circles; and Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera was in prison in Alicante (he would be executed a few months later) and the desire to keep a place open for him prevented any other falangist leader from emerging as a possible head of state. Franco's previous aloofness from politics meant that he had few active enemies in any of the factions that needed to be placated, and had cooperated in recent months with both Germany and Italy.^[33]

On 1 October 1936, in Burgos, Franco was publicly proclaimed as Generalísimo of the National army and Jefe del Estado (Head of State).^[34] When Mola was killed in another air accident a year later (which some believe was an assassination) (2 June 1937), no military leader was left from those who organized the conspiracy against the Republic between 1933 and 1935.^[35]

Military command[link]

From that time until the end of the war, Franco personally guided military operations. After the failed assault on Madrid in November 1936, Franco settled to a piecemeal approach to winning the war, rather than bold maneuvering. As with his decision to relieve the garrison at Toledo, this approach has been subject of some debate; some of his decisions, such as, in June 1938, when he preferred to head for Valencia instead of Catalonia, remain particularly controversial from a military viewpoint. It was however, in Valencia, Castellon and Alicante where the last troops were defeated by Franco.