GENERAL FRANCO
THE
HAS
D
ON Francisco Franco Bahamonde des- cribes himself boldly
AA "Hend of the Spanish State and Generalla- simo of National Armies since 1986,"
Hig -enemies and his friends are united in insist-
ing
more le-
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1956.
DICTATOR
NO
WHO...the spirit
WORRIES
By LES ARMOUR
Everyone worries about him, but he never worrles about
himself.
f
had organised
- Around him he saw signs of that they deny, and these he combated "Sovieta" in the army and in within his own establishment the navy, by setting an example of his It is just twenty yearu since ideal the soldier who does his that more colourful he hoisted his Bag and set out
duty by the state, quietly, with- to
stalo In put the Spanish descriptions are
out asking questions, and with- order Be in 64 now and hin
out seeking anything more than vurate.
friend and his enemies are the junt rewards nf an abte
a waited a wondering how ls going to combat fly twin problema of trading a successor had preserving his government the hurvitadale dechy glast which realls from big years
office.
Yet the man, himself, is colourful in nothing except his name--and even that he has shortened, for practical purposes, to plain Francisco Franco.
He is short, plung, efficient, Alap
Speech. Awin dra
in, decisions,
In dress Whatever he does, he does with a minimum of effort.
TO ROYALTY
SHE'S
'AUNTIE AG'
By A Special Correspondent
UNWILLINGLE
130
in the morning BaronesSH Aarness De Storekl wont 10 bed after her 82nd birthday celebrations,
“Auntie Ap** Tas she is known in the Quren, The Duke of Edinburgh, and most of the world's royaltyi tolal me at her home on the Duchess of Kent's estate at iver (Buckat. Great Britain, on her birthday morning: hate going to bed. It is such a waste of Time, 1 never go to lært before on and I am always up at eight."
"I
The Bareness as kruch *my roots are in Waterford" but she has beter been there. She was born in Paris.
"i marned a Russian,” she said. "The Czar wa my very dear friend"
Auntie Ag cames lo be an intimate friend of only half the Royal personages in the world, but this is an understatement, She ін also the world's Kreatest
authority on the Edwardian era.
“Do you think there was more colour in life in those days?" I asked lær.
"I am sorry for you, she answered. "You have never livel
You can never live like I have lived. colour has been drained from the world."
"Who was the greatest personage Edwardian era 7" I asked.
The
4
servant.
**
He was appointed, as a result,
MC Commender-in-Chief
the Balearic lalands. the sleepy. sun
-drenched,
124141
hoppy paradises of the åfediterranean There his talent for administra - to showed itself on a broader alzolutely it'
There, too, he was, to evidence that Francer Tim elf E
Ne extrd at feast. The off worked imul either problem
from the growing ferment and There is plenty of evidence that eventual explosies
Thes dans for
Traalsetel solve both
And 11t MUZUN RF- that the evidence all points to the belief that he be quite con- vines that his plans will be Frald widland the slightest difficulty
114 2
And he is probably fight
EFFICIENT
got the existenciom at the Spñadesh Infaulty Acudemy and no one hi ever proved that he showed Parly inbition to beetme anything other than an eclent foot soldier
FRANCISCO Franco
ony
Frun 1912 to 1817 he look part in the campaign to secure Spanish Morocco
patently maten!
Its appointment as Chief of Staff in 1935 tufler yet another babef interinde 11: Morocco) probably surprisest
The
hunt.
1 was to be Wiks ofte The very few too soldiers who could be trialed by tallering giate.
In retrospret the appointment Boks nonmal in the exterupe
But tapeds to be seen in its propri perspective
COLESE,
To a good soldier the sight of his army being taken over by political organisation---any sort of political organisation-is necessarily horrifying Franco discovered that whole rections of the
were gradually freeing themselves from official discipline and becom Independent units.
Army
where except in the sections of the state devoted to throttling political activity.
He reasoned, wisely, that men entaged in doging work, quietly wwindling one another. and dreaming in the sun were menace to the state.
Gradually the state has passed into two hands—the bureaucracy and the Church. Franco him- self has had less and less to do. That is why he does not worry twitter
bla
Kovernment.
of "deeny"
own
The army has been carefully screened from polítics. Govern- ment now consists of keeping the elergy and the bureaucrats
71 their
p
pinces -and letting Them rule alnost
within thel
Franço derly dodged the Second World War. 41 war country was in no condition to fight He was hurt when the world Lurbed nggainst him i 1948 as the last surviving rem- man of Fascism. He did not
ink of hanself as Fascist
He
absolutely! tried to stop it, only to int that the government would spheres
hack him. It evuldn't. The Communists were too strong.
'Thi was when Franen firat latest inking of arv:14 He laims that his only thought was the regun control of the army he was
lee - supposed manding 1 45 even possible that that was his only thought
In any case he was swiftly SOPORIFIC fushed to the Candy lands. where he was made Commander- in-Kler
thi
manoctis PIS
BIEN
CHINCE then he has been trying
to prove his potat bud suc- certing to the extent heti the Amerians now regard him as
Fascist
His EX
19.
Palange. The
bed by 21 one of the most reliable allies. sertum of
Army and 11 In truth, be probably not a section at the navy, determined toy a revolt They found
Corporate slair bucking from the clericalists mini There is torget force should be needed. But is not needed. The perhaps unpalatable truth thn! there is very litic demand in Spain for any other sort of government
from the monarchists
Ja 1981, of
King Alfons had been overthrown1 by a heterogeneous collection of Lebris TRAINK from Tabernis The diffleuity
to the # Socialis 1 through
Com lender who could be trusted by munists and anarchists, They all three groups
He entered Twenty years have passed since
Benfermat
The plan as Itrðine à captain In 1913, amel At 25 he was a major in 1914 the yoking major By by virlue of a speelbl dispensation from the King.
WIC
He proved himself o thon- tightly efficient foot Soleiter
Curious
way to spend the years between 1912
il 1917. ferment,
Whe
#1
ה!
Neither Franco 10 most Spaniards seem to want k
modernised, mechanised, efficient,
state. There is grinding poverty. but title stervation. There is litle
General Franco hoisted his standard e freesiom, but
over Spain. In that time he has
largely faded from the world's front
head
The world was in pages. But he still is undisputed
of the Spanish State and shows
It was not just that the First World War was raging across while he WIS tkdying Morocco
oppressio
The stola 时 affairs is spring
People do grumble. A team of
recently psychologists
polled
Madrid University students, 85
percent
of whom decided that the
government was "unscrupulous.
"songen."
every sign of remaining so. How have pollsters. In Russia, a whole
h
Society was in collapse and the Communists
were massing for
their first experiment in govern- ment, while in Britain and the
United States the first peels of the Welfare State were being SOWIL
und a collection of
The restill was not published In Spain, But Franco did not stop the survey or attack the He assumed that Spaniards will always think like that, but that they won't do
are guided into it.
the years treated the soldier-dictator? anything about unless they
To prevent that, he plans the eventual restoration of the monarchy, The function of the were agreed in their opposition Franco was not that cholee King
will be to control the to King Alfonso and divided General Sanjurjo, a Falangist.
army and mediate between The postwar world was to be about everything else, from the was the in Fenneo, after all,
clergy and bureaucrats. Beth, as different from the prewar as
position of the Church to the rould hardly have been trusted reels, will be strong enough the nineteenth century had taxation of tobacconists.
by any of the telligerents. to look after themselves provid- The Yo! The Liberals and 1:
ed that There Is just enough you met in the been from the eighteen. Spain
Soenlists belleved was still living largely
parlla- ITL
direction-with Joyal In the twilight
government. of a curiously mentary
police force to hip Communists believed preserved Middle Ages.
budding political dictatorship of the proletariat,
"The obvious answer is King Edward VII, whom knew very well," she said. "He was a remarkable man.
But there was a woman in Paris
demi-monde when I was young.
in that age of the
I
The anarchists Inevitably the new forces un- leased by the ferment were soon to have Their vitects Yet Franco scarcely knew ant the existence. Kave a
"One night this young woman, Cork Pearl, dinner party. When the main dish was served a huge silver platter with a silver cover was brought in.
"When it was uncovered there was Pearl, and just like a pearl.
The Baroness is now beginning her fifth book, the story of the illegitimate son of Talleyrand. Her fourth, the life story of Louis Philippe, the last King of France, is about to be published.
I asked her what the title was. She said: "1 don't really know. I get so many suggestions. When I wrote my first book Noel Coward, Cecil Beaton and Binkie Beaumont had a debate about what I should call it.
"Cecil
'Crowned Beaten suggested
Henda and Feather Beds," but my publisher, Sir John Murray, did not think this would do at all.”
The Baroness runs a hotel for all the cata on the Duchess of Kent's farm, and each day has a special stew made for them.
(COPYRIGHT)
DECAY
returned to
HE
then wen!
breathing
Po Spain
Sanjurjo was killed al- N Pratico was sneaking
incognito. Tru
the
But
The Most
home, the
Canaries.
did not believe
In { mement 121
1 rebels Bard
rare.
amy and
ccasional inovements. Crisis the He may be wrong. But it is
substitute not likely.
(COPYRIGHT)
in any kind of government, and any of them went beyond that end asserted a mystical kind of bilism which involved the
On July 18, 1936, he took com- rejection
every principle mand of The pint-sized rebel except
the
principle that army in Morocco. He soon had principles were a bad thing. it in fighing trim-and
In such a situation the country ballje was on would. in any case. have been
1 and easy prey for an ambitious man
the
The Republican Government
back quickly with a gun in his hand. Worse, 10 Morocco, where
was h be there
210 parliamentary 劫 heutenant-colons tradition, no middle class of the sands
CRITIC
to
£126
that has guided
got some help from the Russians and herole assistance from thou
who of young idealists
Britain came from the corners of the But Franco got rome-
since the decline of feudalism, earth.
in a garrison devoted primarily kind
an policing
where government was still largely a desperate Action.
and no possibility of the kind of thing better Hider and agreement that at least enabled Mussolini were looking for a effective
10 be place to test their growing war constitutions drafted in countries like France machines. and the United States,
into SHREWDNESS
[DEALISTS and a few Russian guns were no match for Hiller
In 1923. he emerged to be came Director-General of the Military Academy at Saragonso, Spain was being roused and The country hurtled roused rapidly from her medieval anarchy, and no one scemed dream, and Franco certainly able to find n solution. did not like what he saw
One government tore into the He
hold us Church, confiscated its proper- continued to
iis educational peace and his reputation as an ties, disrupted emelont administrator grew system and threw its clergy into and Mussolini and, in November slowly, but stendily.
a state of terror. But, Instead of the same year, Franco was
Madrid. Thereafter of finding that it had released in the people of Spain from the issue was settled. bonds of feudalism. It found In Franco's own words: that it had merely cut away fought a cruel war. It was the mortar which bound the hell.
PALE HANDS I LOVED
BESIDE THE SHALIMAR· WHERE ARE YOU NOW WHERE ARE YOU NOW ?'
FRIGHT
the
"We
people together In their only It is not likely that anyong semblance of a common purpose. will ever settle the rights and The
next government made wrongs of those months of hell some amends, but the confusion The Republicans were, after all, only mounted.
the government, Yet Franco may have been right belleying that the alternative to rebellion was an anarchy which would have mounted until the protagonists had wiped SOCIAL reforms merely im- one another out or ended in o
posed now dutica which Communist state. could not be enforced, and The issue was not decided on granted. now rights which the principles but on the strength government could not put into of Hitler's guna against Re- effact.
publican ideals, and a wor do A Fascist movement - the chaotic left no records full Falangevas one natural by- enough to justify any unblased -But even Judgment.
product of the chaos.
that was really just one more It was after the battle that force adding to the confusion, Franco began to show his real It lacked tiza regimented shrewdness.
industrial proletariat on which He played the Falange off Miller and Mussolini waxed fat, ngairist, the Church, and bul- and it had no trodition of tressed his hold over both with effective authoritarian govern- the army. He discouraged the ment (like the Prussian tradi- monarchists but carefully did tlon) on to which it could graft not destroy them. Chelf,
More Important, he set about The prospect of an honest buliding a middle clars-u vast soldier who might be trusted, sprawling burenilersey which (at least, tó khợp” the army in now regulates, every aspect of
order was, therefore, one which Spanish don
the government greeted with He stamped Hard on political activity in general; even tid
| unrestrained joy.
So Franco, took over the army. Falange WIN quid 17. And thd truth is that he-couraged, and the Church Wal might, have remained in. loval, kapt
*
support of the government lite kuy making good fur för orte, thilathe Commundata or Hai Re unitetärikad 1850, unyn hlas och of the Love:frlahka pomilla with figanian. ELOHIMILA of his career. He discoveted did not insist on efficiency, any“,