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1. Shadows of a pronunciamiento (1)


The Spanish military intelligence, the Sección del Servicio Especial (SSE - Special Serivce Branch), was aware that a coup d'etat was on the making since early February 1936, when General Manuel Goded was removed as General Inspector of the Army and send as commander of the garrison in the Ballearic Islands on February 21. On the next day, he went to the Montaña barracks to rise the regiments garrisoned there against the new-elected government. He was persuaded by some of the officers, but his action was detected by the men of the SSE.

Furthermore, General Francisco Franco, the former Chief of the General Staff, seemed to be playing a double game with the government, as he wrote to the head of the government, Casares Quiroga (June 23, 1936), to offer himself to quell the discontent in the armed forces while als oplaying with time with the other leaders of the planned rebellion; the intercepted messages between the head of the main branch of the conspiracy, General Emilio Mola, and the leaders of the ultra-right party Falange, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, and of the Carlist movement, Manuel Fal Conde; and the reports of General José Fernández de Villa-Abrille, commander of the Andalusian military region, about his suspicions towards the actions of the conspirator General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano.

On July 9th, the chief ot the VI Organic Division of Burgos, General Domingo Batet Mestre met with his friend, Mola, who was under his command, and asked him if he had something to do with any incomming uprising. Mola not only denied that, but also gave his word of honour to Batet, who was not too sure about that and ordered the arrest of his subordinate hardly two days later, the same day when Villa-Abrille also send a squad to place Queipo de Llano under arrest .

Thus started the purge of the Spanish army.






(1) A pronunciamiento is a form of military rebellion. It plagued the Spanish history of the 19th century.
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