2023-04-17 22:21:32
In the 1940s and 1950s, Spain promoted some threats of monarchical conspiracies against the dictatorship, promoted by a group of generals who criticized Franco for not having restored the Crown, as he had promised, and for having accumulated all power in his hand. A few days ago we already told you on ABC about the strange death of the protagonist of one of these plots, the Captain General of Catalonia, Juan Bautista Sánchez, in 1957.
On the night of January 29 of that year, his body appeared in the room of the Hotel Prado de Puigcerdá, in Gerona. The autopsy determined that he had been the “victim of a heart attack”, but this official version was doubted from the outset. Rumors circulated throughout Spain that the soldier had been assassinated by order of the dictator, a few years after he had been surprised by the resurgence of monarchical activity.
In February 1950, in fact, Franco received several generals who asked him if he had already taken the necessary measures to guarantee the monarchical succession upon his death. In September of that same year, 15,000 passports were requested in Spain to attend the coming-out of the eldest daughter of Don Juan de Borbón in Estoril. And, in the limited municipal elections that were held a month later, an independent candidacy of royalists presented an unexpected success.
This led the dictator to approach Don Juan, with the aim of reassuring his defenders. In 2008, Xavier Casals Meseguer recounted in his article ‘1957: The coup against Franco’ (‘Ayer’ magazine) that some Juanistas considered overthrowing the Caudillo in 1952. One of them even suggested his assassination. This situation led to a second in the palace of Las Cabezas de Cáceres, where the head of state defined the limits of monarchical activism: «What I do not and will not consent to is that the propagandists of the monarchical doctrine fall into the impatience of telling us: ‘Take off you, that we wear ourselves’». And, a month later, he settled the issue: “The succession of the National Movement is the Movement itself.”
“Ultimate Force Strike”
Indeed, monarchical aspirations existed within the Franco regime and it is well known how some of the conspiracies were conceived and how Franco crushed them with the help of the Falangists. It has even been said that Don Juan encouraged Juan Bautista Sánchez to carry out “a definitive coup against the dictatorship” in February 1956. But the detail that has gone unnoticed by most history books, including in a couple of specialized articles, it is the secret questionnaire that was circulated among a large group of soldiers, that same month, to probe their monarchical orientation.
One of the copies is in the Historical Archive of the Francisco Franco National Foundation (FNFF) under the following heading: «Juanista survey among the military. Document of the General Secretary of the Ministry of Information, informative section, no. 26,600”. As indicated, the answers to the fourteen questions were to be compiled and delivered “to the generals [¿Carlos?] Asensio, [¿Miguel?] Rodrigo and [¿?] Cavanillas”, as Casals suggests in his article. With them, the authors apparently intended to create a climate of opinion, rather than channel an existing one, since the text includes some programmatic norms.
The objective was to create a climate of opinion, rather than channel an already existing one, from what can be deduced from the fact that some programmatic norms were included in the text among the questions. There is no news that the questionnaire reached Franco’s ears, which began with the following introduction or declaration of intent: «The present political situation may lead to a new exchange of views on the modifications required […] the current regime, to adapt it to […] an eminently popular monarchy […]. For this reason, a list of points on which it seems more urgent and interesting to gather opinions is offered for general consideration.
Report they conspired against Franco, published by ‘Blanco y Negro’ in 1979
Questionnaire
Below were the 14 issues on which the military had to give their opinion:
1. Appointing the Caudillo Regent, would it facilitate the national evolution towards the Monarchy?
2. The representation of the Monarchy is embodied in fact and in law in Don Juan de Borbón y Battemberg under the name of Juan III.
3. The restoration of the Monarchy cannot be carried out without offering the country a letter from the people in which the rights of citizens and the orbit and development of public powers are established.
4. Form and term to pass from this regime to the Monarchy. Does the King come from the first moment or a provisional government precedes him?
5. In the meantime, a Constitution is drafted and approved. Is it convenient to provisionally restore that of 1876 or is a declaration of principles made public by the King?
6. Character and name of the national representation that has to exercise the legislative power.
7. Obligation to recognize citizens Christian freedoms and respect for human rights.
8. Radical disappearance of all totalitarian product. Matches?
9. The State will continue to be Catholic without diminishing the right of all to profess any other religion.
10. In the financial order, the austerity of expenses and the reduction of the supervisory pressure are advocated.
11. Economically, respect for private initiative and free competition.
12. Continuity of contractual relations in labor matters. Unions?
13. Administration of Justice independent of another power.
14. Enable the Military Forces to prove their patriotism within the highest discipline.
The monarchical agitation that this survey represents continued later with other actions of a similar nature. As Laureano López Rodó explained in his book ‘The long march towards the Monarchy’ (Noguer, 1977), a kind of “working document” circulated at the same time, although Casals is not very clear if it was an original or a reproduced text. In that it was said: «In the spring of 1956, Juan Claudio Güell, Count of Ruiseñada, delivered to Don Juan Bautista Sánchez a memorandum, action plan or State reorganization project, whatever you want to call it, for his study and dissemination among others. monarchist generals.
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