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Two English authors 'engineered start of Spanish civil war', claims new book

56 points by lermontov 10y ago

JorgeGT 10y ago
Beware that the title is highly misleading. They apparently helped to arrange the flight of Franco from Las Palmas to Morocco to start the war, but this step was just the culmination of a long conspiracy to overthrow the Republican government, which Franco himself only joined towards the end, when the coup was certain. It would have happened anyway, these guys just helped providing that particular flight. If not for them, the conspirators would had chartered someone else's plane or boat.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  Like many major events in history (including most wars and revolutions), it's probably best interpreted as the product of both large-scale and systematic factors as well as happenstance and small-scale interventions -- like the timing (and relative speediness, compared to a boat) of this particular chartered flight. To refer to an even larger-scale example: clearly the Russian Empire was in the throes of an extended period of turmoil and conflict in the last years of the House of Romanov, which by that point was unlikely to stay in power for very long in any case... but at the same time things might very well not have turned out quite the way they did had not the German government approved that famous train ride from Zürich to Petrograd for Lenin and his entourage in February of 1917 (as nifty way, so they thought, of seeding just the right amount of chaos to induce in the Empire to soften its resolve to continue the fight against the Central Powers).
  - JorgeGT 10y ago
    I agree, it is reductionist to claim that WWI happened just because Gavrilo Princip, or that the Kaiser "engineered" the birth of the Soviet Union with the sealed train. In this case the coup was too advanced to be aborted (top generals were already too implicated) so it would have happened one way or another. That the war itself and the dictatorship afterwards could have changed if Franco had to resort to other transport is indeed quite possible, but we will never know.
- vacri 10y ago
  A bit like saying that WWI started because of a sandwich, I guess. Archduke Ferdinand's assassin mistimed the original location, and stopped for lunch. As he was eating, Ferdinand passed by. If not for that sandwich "WWI would not have happened" (but of course it would have - something else would have sparked it, or the Archduke would have been assassinated later on)
- nextos 10y ago
  Exactly. Franco hesitated a lot, as he did not want to join if odds of success were slim. Furthermore, his role was not key till 2 other generals died on different plane crashes.
pipio21 10y ago
This is extremely inaccurate and misleading. First there was lots of international actors in the Spanish civil war and England was probably the least important of all those. Of course UK media like the guardian will grossly exaggerate the England importance over it. Countries like the Soviet Union had much more importance as they were the main supporters of 1934 "Asturias' revolution" that tried to make Spain a proletarian dictatorship and URSS satellite. Stalin will influence the war removing Largo Caballero and putting his lackey Negrin as leader of the republicans. Germany also had great influence as they considered essential not letting his enemy URSS get more power in Spain. England and France mainly remained neutral. There were socialist, anarchist and Communist on those countries that supported republicans as well as entities that supported Nationalists. This article try to mislead people talking about Franco as he was the leader of the revolt in Spain, but he was not. He was a very good general but totally lacking charisma over the masses and there were several people over him at the start of the revolt. Most of those people died over the war or just were too old to leader and Franco was elected as leader four months after starting the war.
- caf 10y ago
  This does not seem to bear on the claim being reported here, which is that Douglas Jerrold, Hugh Pollard and Louis Bolin chartered a light aircraft, flew to the Canary Islands where they picked up Franco and transported him to Morocco. Either that happened, or it didn't, but your comment doesn't seem to shed any light one way or another?
  - narag 10y ago
    The article claims much more than what you say. Did they bring Franco to mainland, helping the nacional side? OK. Did they "engineered start of Spanish civil war"? That's a terrible hyperbole.
    - caf 10y ago
      The article put that in quotes, just as you did.
- 10y ago
mbroncano 10y ago
It's not only misleading but rather inaccurate, as Franco wasn't even likely to succeed Sanjurjo [1], the lead in the conspirancy. Classical narcissistic delusion, more proper of the daily mail than the guardian. Brits are traditionally prone to it, poor souls. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Sanjurjo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Sanjurjo
- NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  In all fairness, all press geared towards internal consumption does that - at least in every western country I've lived in.
  - mbroncano 10y ago
    Absolutely, that's why I quantified it as 'prone'. Paraphrasing an all time favorite Briton of mine, we might be all equal, it's just that some of us are more equal than others.

56 points by lermontov 10y ago

Beware that the title is highly misleading. They apparently helped to arrange the flight of Franco from Las Palmas to Morocco to start the war, but this step was just the culmination of a long conspiracy to overthrow the Republican government, which Franco himself only joined towards the end, when the coup was certain. It would have happened anyway, these guys just helped providing that particular flight. If not for them, the conspirators would had chartered someone else's plane or boat.

kafkaesq 10y ago
Like many major events in history (including most wars and revolutions), it's probably best interpreted as the product of both large-scale and systematic factors as well as happenstance and small-scale interventions -- like the timing (and relative speediness, compared to a boat) of this particular chartered flight. To refer to an even larger-scale example: clearly the Russian Empire was in the throes of an extended period of turmoil and conflict in the last years of the House of Romanov, which by that point was unlikely to stay in power for very long in any case... but at the same time things might very well not have turned out quite the way they did had not the German government approved that famous train ride from Zürich to Petrograd for Lenin and his entourage in February of 1917 (as nifty way, so they thought, of seeding just the right amount of chaos to induce in the Empire to soften its resolve to continue the fight against the Central Powers).
- JorgeGT 10y ago
  I agree, it is reductionist to claim that WWI happened just because Gavrilo Princip, or that the Kaiser "engineered" the birth of the Soviet Union with the sealed train. In this case the coup was too advanced to be aborted (top generals were already too implicated) so it would have happened one way or another. That the war itself and the dictatorship afterwards could have changed if Franco had to resort to other transport is indeed quite possible, but we will never know.
vacri 10y ago
A bit like saying that WWI started because of a sandwich, I guess. Archduke Ferdinand's assassin mistimed the original location, and stopped for lunch. As he was eating, Ferdinand passed by. If not for that sandwich "WWI would not have happened" (but of course it would have - something else would have sparked it, or the Archduke would have been assassinated later on)
nextos 10y ago
Exactly. Franco hesitated a lot, as he did not want to join if odds of success were slim. Furthermore, his role was not key till 2 other generals died on different plane crashes.

pipio21 10y ago

This is extremely inaccurate and misleading. First there was lots of international actors in the Spanish civil war and England was probably the least important of all those. Of course UK media like the guardian will grossly exaggerate the England importance over it. Countries like the Soviet Union had much more importance as they were the main supporters of 1934 "Asturias' revolution" that tried to make Spain a proletarian dictatorship and URSS satellite. Stalin will influence the war removing Largo Caballero and putting his lackey Negrin as leader of the republicans. Germany also had great influence as they considered essential not letting his enemy URSS get more power in Spain. England and France mainly remained neutral. There were socialist, anarchist and Communist on those countries that supported republicans as well as entities that supported Nationalists. This article try to mislead people talking about Franco as he was the leader of the revolt in Spain, but he was not. He was a very good general but totally lacking charisma over the masses and there were several people over him at the start of the revolt. Most of those people died over the war or just were too old to leader and Franco was elected as leader four months after starting the war.

caf 10y ago
This does not seem to bear on the claim being reported here, which is that Douglas Jerrold, Hugh Pollard and Louis Bolin chartered a light aircraft, flew to the Canary Islands where they picked up Franco and transported him to Morocco. Either that happened, or it didn't, but your comment doesn't seem to shed any light one way or another?
- narag 10y ago
  The article claims much more than what you say. Did they bring Franco to mainland, helping the nacional side? OK. Did they "engineered start of Spanish civil war"? That's a terrible hyperbole.
  - caf 10y ago
    The article put that in quotes, just as you did.
10y ago

mbroncano 10y ago

It's not only misleading but rather inaccurate, as Franco wasn't even likely to succeed Sanjurjo [1], the lead in the conspirancy. Classical narcissistic delusion, more proper of the daily mail than the guardian. Brits are traditionally prone to it, poor souls. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Sanjurjo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Sanjurjo

NetStrikeForce 10y ago
In all fairness, all press geared towards internal consumption does that - at least in every western country I've lived in.
- mbroncano 10y ago
  Absolutely, that's why I quantified it as 'prone'. Paraphrasing an all time favorite Briton of mine, we might be all equal, it's just that some of us are more equal than others.