1956-02-11 — Page 13

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“,