Franco Becomes Insurgent Leader
Tuesday 30th September
1936
Francisco Franco
was proclaimed as the supreme commander of the insurgent forces in the Spanish
civil war by the junta at Burgos. As each front had operated more-or-less autonomously
at the start of the war, this had not been a pressing question, but as the
fronts stabilised, unified leadership was required. Franco would not have been
the obvious first choice at the start of the uprising. The original designated
leader General Sanjurjo had died in an air crash General Mola was a more
prominent figure politically, but his credibility had suffered from what was
seen as a botched coup and his closeness to the extreme Carlist and Falange
movements.
Franco’s new
prominence could be read in his attendance at a memorial for those who had
fallen in the siege of Toledo led by the Archbishop of Toledo, who according to
insurgent propaganda had remained with the cadets defending the Alcazar,
somehow mysteriously escaping before it fell to the Republicans. In his speech afterwards
Franco told the cadets they were “the pride of Spain. The old Alcazar is
destroyed. We will build another. We are going to build a new Spain and an
Empire”.
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