Sunday, March 5, 1939, 11:30 p.m. It was the first time that Julián Besteiro spoke from Unión Radio’s microphones as a member of the newly formed National Defense Council. It was also the first time that defeat and surrender had been spoken publicly since the Republic with such forcefulness and clarity. Minutes later, the message arrived transcribed at Franco’s headquarters. The moment that he had been preparing for so long since he ordered the frontal attack on Madrid to be stopped, that distant November of 1936, had arrived. The city, as Francisco Franco himself announced to his generals at the time, would surrender from within.
The precipitation of the end of the Civil War, through the so-called coup of Colonel Casado, definitively broke the relations of all the organizations of the Popular Front. A process in which at least three factors converged: the political evolution of the conflict; military evolution, with internal fighting for control of the capital, and, consequently, the new dimension that Madrid occupied as a postwar political center. A crucial moment that has gone down in history for the photograph of Besteiro radiating his speech, escorted by a Married man whose face betrayed the gravity of the moment. An image that has marked the idea of a plot to end the war.
The precipitation of the end of the Civil War, through the so-called Colonel Casado coup, definitively broke the relations of all the organizations of the Popular Front
After concluding the message, Besteiro, the only remaining historical figure of socialism within Spain, locked himself in the cellars of the Ministry of Finance, on Calle de Alcalá, from where he would no longer leave until his arrest. There, he wrote some notes by hand that, although they are undated, can be located two weeks after his intervention, once the combats with the communist forces faithful to the until then president of the Council of Ministers, Juan Negrín, had ended, and the talks with Burgos resumed. . In four handwritten pages, thick and fast, he outlined the lines for surrender. He titled them Need for speedy action, notes on the occupation of Madrid at the end of the war. From the original draft, kept in the Archive of the Pablo Iglesias Foundation, he only changed the word “occupation” to “delivery”, but kept the five short, concise paragraphs intact, each of which contained a central message:
“The haste of the nationalists and their propaganda are creating a psychological state that can precipitate the outcome without allowing the evacuation to be ordered.”
“It is advisable to act that gives the reassuring feeling that peace is a fact and allows us to recommend an order that facilitates evacuation and the time and methods necessary to achieve it in an orderly manner.”
“That act could be the symbolic delivery, which, if possible, will consist of the delivery of Madrid, rather than the delivery of the airplanes.”
“Desist from any commitment signed by both parties, among other things due to its complete ineffectiveness. On the other hand, to obtain the right to make public the offers made spontaneously by Franco, because this would produce a sedative effect and prevent the exodus of the great mass that, if put into motion, would make it impossible to save anyone. ”
“Concentrate all the effort in the ordering of the delivery according to the consequences of the evacuation, with dismissal [sic] of any strategic plan, since, at the height that things have reached, its application would only prolong and increase the disaster, to the detriment of all and especially ours. “
The aviation
These five points are part of the plan that the socialists of the Central zone improvised, who, together with the anarchists, wanted to end the war as soon as possible. Both were opposed to the republican high command, which used strategic reasons, such as the surrender of troops and especially of aviation, to prolong negotiations with the Francoists. Besteiro tried to unblock the situation, ignoring the need to reach a signed peace between the two Armies, as Casado had tried without success, and making public the “concessions” proposed by Franco. Burgos’s message of “forgiveness for those who did not have blood stained hands” was known, but not so much their conditions: the combatants and the civilian population had to return to the towns where they resided before July 18 for their subsequent classification.
Noting the consequences of the closure that would cause a more than likely military occupation, Besteiro tried to speed up the evacuation through a highly symbolic gesture such as the delivery of Madrid to end the war. His last political actions were in that direction. On the morning of March 18, he sent a cable to Washington to the ambassador to the United States, Fernando de los Ríos, to contact the ambassador of Mexico in Paris: “To provide us with concrete information about help that Mexico can provide, admitting emigrants from this area at the time of liquidation. It is this fundamental issue for us, given current circumstances. ” That same night, exhausted, he directed a new radio message, revealing the terms of the conversations that the military kept secret.
The cataclysm was final. After a brief interruption in the messages, Franco’s Headquarters expressly rejected that Besteiro, “or any other politician,” was aware of the talks between the military. Colonel Casado, after accepting the “unconditional surrender”, prepared to leave the country. The rest of the Defense Council did the same, with the exception of Besteiro and the members of the Madrid Council who had also agreed to stay. The power vacuum was such that the capitulation had to be announced on March 26 by the latter body, while notifying by radio the advance of the Francoist Army and the Italian bombardment of the Aranjuez airfield. The dreaded final offensive seemed imminent and the phased evacuation had turned into a massive and desperate flight. That same afternoon, the radio announced the delivery of the aviation.
The last messages appealed to the National Defense Council when its members knew that Besteiro was the only one of them all who had stayed in Madrid. His political interlocutor, however, no longer had any work to do. Everything had been resolved between the military. The entry of the troops by the University City had been agreed by the Francoists with Colonel Prada. After leaving the Ministry of Finance, Prada radioed to “all of Spain” as the last republican military authority of the Army of the Center.
Communications were permanently interrupted. All of Madrid’s nerve centers, supplies, fuels, supplies, as well as prisons, courts and police stations, had already changed hands. The bulk of the troops entered the following day, starting at one in the afternoon, as planned. And practically, the first thing they did from a political point of view was to arrest and prosecute Besteiro, who was already testifying before a special military court on March 29. Felipe Acedo Colunga, who acted as a prosecutor, asked for the death penalty against his former first-year professor of Logic, “because the only ones the revolution redeems are its leaders.” On July 8, he was finally sentenced to life in prison. Sick and 68 years old, this sentence amounted to certain death. A year and a half later he died in Seville’s Carmona prison, where he had been transferred with a group of Basque priests and PNV militants, perhaps the first to have attempted an agreed surrender.
Gutmaro Gómez Bravo He is a historian from the Complutense University of Madrid.
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