Editing Francisco Franco (section)

=== During the Second Spanish Republic ===
The municipal elections of 12 April 1931 were largely seen as a plebiscite on the monarchy.{{sfn|Jackson|2012|p=518}} The Republican-Socialist alliance failed to win the majority of the municipalities in Spain but had a landslide victory in all the large cities and in almost all the provincial capitals.{{sfn|Payne|Palacios|2014|p=66}} The monarchists and the army deserted Alfonso XIII and consequently the king decided to leave the country and go into exile, giving way to the [[Second Spanish Republic]]. Although Franco believed that the majority of the Spanish people still supported the crown, and although he regretted the end of the monarchy, he did not object, nor did he challenge the legitimacy of the republic.{{sfn|Payne|Palacios|2014|p=68}} The closing of the academy in June by the provisional War Minister [[Manuel Azaña]] however was a major setback for Franco and provoked his first clash with the [[Second Spanish Republic|Spanish Republic]]. Azaña found Franco's farewell speech to the cadets insulting.{{sfn|Payne|Palacios|2014|p=74}} In his speech Franco stressed the Republic's need for discipline and respect.{{sfn|Franco Bahamonde|2020|p=42}} Azaña entered an official reprimand into Franco's personnel file and for six months Franco was without a post and under surveillance.{{sfn|Payne|Palacios|2014|p=74}}

In December 1931, a new reformist, liberal, and democratic [[Spanish Constitution of 1931|constitution]] was declared. It included strong provisions enforcing a broad [[secularisation]] of the Catholic country, which included the abolishing of Catholic schools and charities, which many moderate committed Catholics opposed.{{sfn|Preston|2006|p=53}} At this point, once the constituent assembly had fulfilled its mandate of approving a new constitution, it should have arranged for regular parliamentary elections and adjourned, according to historian [[Carlton J. H. Hayes]]. Fearing the increasing popular opposition, the Radical and Socialist majority postponed the regular elections, thereby prolonging their stay in power for two more years. This way the republican government of Manuel Azaña initiated numerous reforms to what in their view would "modernize" the country.{{sfn|Hayes|1951|p=91}}

Franco was a subscriber to the journal of [[Acción Española]], a monarchist organisation, and a firm believer in a supposed Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy, or ''contubernio'' (conspiracy). The conspiracy suggested that Jews, Freemasons, Communists, and other leftists alike sought the destruction of Christian Europe, with Spain being the principal target.{{sfn|Preston|2010|pp=42, 45}}
[[File:Francisco Franco 1930.jpg|thumb|Franco in 1930]]

On 5 February 1932, Franco was given a command in [[A Coruña]]. Franco avoided involvement in [[José Sanjurjo]]'s attempted coup that year, and even wrote a hostile letter to Sanjurjo expressing his anger over the attempt. As a result of [[Military reform of Manuel Azaña|Azaña's military reform]], in January 1933 Franco was relegated from first to 24th in the list of brigadiers. The same year, on 17 February he was given the military command of the [[Balearic Islands]]. The post was above his rank, but Franco was still unhappy that he was stuck in a position he disliked. The prime minister wrote in his diary that it was probably more prudent to have Franco away from Madrid.{{sfn|Sangster|2018|p=83}}{{sfn|Payne|Palacios|2014|pp=80–81}}

In 1932, the Jesuits, who were in charge of many schools throughout the country, were banned and had all their property confiscated.{{sfn|Castillo|2019|p=92}} The army was further reduced, and landowners were expropriated. Home rule was granted to Catalonia, with a local parliament and a president of its own.{{sfn|Ben-Ami|1981|p=220}} In June 1933 [[Pope Pius XI]] issued the encyclical [[Dilectissima Nobis]] (Our Dearly Beloved), "On Oppression of the Church of Spain", in which he criticised the anti-clericalism of the Republican government.{{sfn|Castillo|2019|p=92}}

The elections held in October 1933 resulted in a centre-right majority. The political party with the most votes was the Confederación Español de Derechas Autónomas ("CEDA"), but president [[Niceto Alcalá-Zamora|Alcalá-Zamora]] declined to invite the leader of the CEDA, Gil Robles, to form a government.{{sfn|Raguer|2007|p=32}} Instead, he invited the [[Radical Republican Party]]'s [[Alejandro Lerroux]] to do so. Despite receiving the most votes, CEDA was denied cabinet positions for nearly a year.{{sfn|Payne|Palacios|2014|pp=84–85}} After a year of intense pressure, CEDA, the largest party in the congress, was finally successful in forcing the acceptance of three ministries. The entrance of CEDA in the government, despite being normal in a parliamentary democracy, was not well accepted by the left. The Socialists triggered an insurrection that they had been preparing for nine months. The leftist Republican parties did not directly join the insurrection, but their leadership issued statements that they were "breaking all relations" with the Republican government.{{sfn|Payne|Palacios|2014|p=88}} The Catalan ''Bloc Obrer i Camperol'' (BOC) advocated the need to form a broad workers' front and took the lead in forming a new and more encompassing ''Alianza Obrera'', which included the Catalan UGT and the Catalan sector of the PSOE, with the goal of defeating fascism and advancing the socialist revolution. The ''Alianza Obrera'' declared a general strike "against fascism" in Catalonia in 1934.{{sfn|Payne|2008|p=$2}} A [[Catalan State (1934)|Catalan state]] was proclaimed by Catalan nationalist leader [[Lluís Companys|Lluis Companys]], but it lasted just ten hours. Despite an attempt at a general stoppage in [[Madrid]], other strikes did not endure. This left the striking [[Asturias|Asturian]] miners to fight alone.{{sfn|Vincent|2007|p=133}}

In several mining towns in Asturias, local unions gathered small arms and were determined to see the strike through. It began on the evening of 4 October, with the miners occupying several towns, attacking and seizing local [[Guardia Civil|Civil]] and [[Assault Guard]] barracks.{{sfn|Jackson|2012|pp=154–155}} Thirty-four priests, six young seminarists with ages between 18 and 21, and several businessmen and civil guards were summarily executed by the revolutionaries in [[Mieres, Asturias|Mieres]] and [[Sama, Asturias|Sama]], 58 religious buildings including churches, convents and part of the university at Oviedo were burned and destroyed,{{sfn|Thomas|2013|p=132}} and over 100 priests were killed in the diocese.{{sfn|de la Cueva|1998|p=356}} Franco, already General of Division and aide to the war minister, [[Diego Hidalgo y Durán|Diego Hidalgo]], was put in command of the operations directed to suppress the violent insurgency. Troops of the Spanish [[Army of Africa (Spain)|Army of Africa]] carried this out, with General [[Eduardo López Ochoa]] as commander in the field. After two weeks of heavy fighting (and a death toll estimated between 1,200 and 2,000), the rebellion was suppressed.

The [[Asturian miners' strike of 1934|insurgency in Asturias]] in October 1934 sparked a new era of violent anti-Christian persecutions with the massacre of 34 priests, initiating the practice of atrocities against the clergy,{{sfn|de la Cueva|1998|p=365}} and sharpened the antagonism between Left and Right. Franco and López Ochoa (who, prior to the campaign in Asturias, had been seen as a left-leaning officer){{sfn|Preston|1995|p=103}} emerged as officers prepared to use "troops against Spanish civilians as if they were a foreign enemy".{{sfn|Preston|2010|p=61}} Franco described the rebellion to a journalist in [[Oviedo]] as, "a frontier war and its fronts are socialism, communism and whatever attacks civilisation to replace it with barbarism." Though the colonial units sent to the north by the government at Franco's recommendation{{sfn|Thomas|2013|p=132}} consisted of the [[Spanish Foreign Legion]] and the Moroccan [[Regulares]] Indigenas,{{sfn|Balfour|2002|pp=252–254}} the right-wing press portrayed the Asturian rebels as lackeys of a foreign Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.{{sfn|Sangster|2018|p=87}}

With this rebellion against legitimate established political authority, the socialists also repudiated the representative institutional system as the anarchists had done.{{sfn|Casanova|2010|p=111}} The Spanish historian [[Salvador de Madariaga]], an Azaña supporter, and an exiled vocal opponent of Francisco Franco is the author of a sharp critical reflection against the participation of the left in the revolt: "The uprising of 1934 is unforgivable. The argument that Mr Gil Robles tried to destroy the Constitution to establish fascism was, at once, hypocritical and false. With the rebellion of 1934, the Spanish left lost even the shadow of moral authority to condemn the rebellion of 1936."{{sfn|Hernández|2015|p=125}}

At the start of the Civil War, López Ochoa was assassinated; his head was severed and paraded around the streets on a pole, with a card reading, 'This is the butcher of Asturias'.{{sfn|Preston|2012|p=266}} Sometime after these events, Franco was briefly commander-in-chief of the Army of Africa (from 15 February onwards), and from 19 May 1935, on, Chief of the General [[staff (military)|Staff]].

==== 1936 general election ====
{{Main|1936 Spanish general election}}
At the end of 1935, President Alcalá-Zamora manipulated a petty-corruption issue into a [[Straperlo|major scandal in parliament]], and eliminated [[Alejandro Lerroux]], the head of the Radical Republican Party, from the premiership. Subsequently, Alcalá-Zamora vetoed the logical replacement, a majority centre-right coalition, led by the CEDA, which would reflect the composition of the parliament. He then arbitrarily appointed an interim prime minister and after a short period announced the dissolution of parliament and new elections.{{sfn|Payne|Palacios|2014|pp=97–98}}

Two wide coalitions formed: the [[Popular Front (Spain)|Popular Front]] on the left, ranging from the [[Republican Union (Spain, 1934)|Republican Union]] to the [[Communist Party of Spain|communists]], and the Frente Nacional on the right, ranging from the centre [[radicalism (historical)|radicals]] to the conservative [[Carlism|Carlists]]. On 16 February 1936 the elections ended in a virtual draw, but in the evening leftist mobs started to interfere in the balloting and in the registration of votes, distorting the results.{{sfn|Payne|Palacios|2014|p=108}}<ref>"Riots Sweep Spain on Left's Victory; Jails Are Stormed", ''The New York Times'', 18 February 1936.</ref> [[Stanley G. Payne]] claims that the process was blatant electoral fraud, with widespread violation of the laws and the constitution.{{sfn|Payne|1993|p=319}}{{sfn|Siaroff|2013|p=119}} In line with Payne's point of view, in 2017 two Spanish scholars, Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Roberto Villa García published the result of a major research work in which they concluded that the 1936 elections were rigged,{{sfn|García|Tardío|2017|p=?}}<ref>{{cite web |last1=Redondo |first1=Javier |title=El 'pucherazo' del 36 |date=12 March 2017 |url=https://www.elmundo.es/cronica/2017/03/12/58c3b8bb46163f9f338b457d.html |publisher=El Mundo |language=es}}</ref> a view disputed by Paul Preston,{{sfn|Preston|2020|p=252}} and other scholars such as Iker Itoiz Ciáurriz, who denounces their conclusions as revisionist "classic Francoist anti-republican tropes".{{sfn|Ciáurriz|2020|p=103}}

On 19 February, the cabinet presided over by [[Portela Valladares]] resigned, with a new cabinet being quickly set up, composed chiefly of members of the [[Izquierda Republicana|Republican Left]] and the [[Republican Union (Spain, 1934)|Republican Union]] and presided over by [[Manuel Azaña]].{{sfn|Avilés Farré|2006|pp=397–398}}

[[José Calvo Sotelo]], who made anti-communism the focus of his parliamentary speeches, began spreading violent propaganda—advocating for a military coup d'état, formulating a catastrophist discourse of a dichotomous choice between "communism" or a markedly totalitarian "National" State, and setting the mood of the masses for a military rebellion. The diffusion of the myth about an alleged Communist coup d'état as well a pretended state of "social chaos" became pretexts for a coup. Franco himself along with General [[Emilio Mola]] had stirred an anti-Communist campaign in Morocco.{{sfn|González Calleja|2016|p=5}}

On 23 February, Franco was sent to the [[Canary Islands]] to serve as the islands' military commander, an appointment perceived by him as a ''destierro'' (banishment).{{sfn|Preston|1995|p=120}} Meanwhile, a [[Spanish military conspiracy of 1936|conspiracy led by General Mola]] was taking shape.

Interested in the parliamentary immunity granted by a seat at the Cortes, Franco intended to stand as candidate of the Right Bloc alongside [[José Antonio Primo de Rivera]] for the by-election in the [[province of Cuenca]] programmed for 3 May 1936, after the results of the February 1936 election were annulled in the constituency. But Primo de Rivera refused to run alongside a military officer (Franco in particular) and Franco himself ultimately desisted on 26 April, one day before the decision of the election authority. By that time, PSOE politician [[Indalecio Prieto]] had already deemed Franco as a "possible caudillo for a military uprising".{{sfn|Villaverde|1999|p=16}}

Disenchantment with Azaña's rule continued to grow and was dramatically voiced by [[Miguel de Unamuno]], a republican and one of Spain's most respected intellectuals, who in June 1936 told a reporter who published his statement in El Adelanto that President Manuel Azaña should "...debiera suicidarse como acto patriótico" ("commit suicide as a patriotic act").{{sfn|Evans|2013|p=125}}

In June 1936, Franco was contacted, and a secret meeting was held within [[El Rosario, Tenerife|La Esperanza forest]] on [[Tenerife]] to discuss starting a military coup.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.elpais.com/especiales/2006/mirada/fotogaleria_4_3.html |title=Las raíces insulares de Franco (The island roots of Franco) |work=El País |access-date=15 April 2013 |language=es |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130523055841/http://www.elpais.com/especiales/2006/mirada/fotogaleria_4_3.html |archive-date=23 May 2013}}</ref> An obelisk (which has subsequently been removed) commemorating this historic meeting was erected at the site in a clearing at [[Las Raíces]] in Tenerife.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.laopinion.es/tenerife/2008/11/29/monumento-franco-raices-sera-retirado/184903.html|title=El monumento a Franco en Las Raíces será retirado (Monument to Franco's meeting to be removed)|publisher=Laopinion|date=29 September 2008|access-date=15 April 2013|language=es}}</ref>

Outwardly, Franco maintained an ambiguous attitude until nearly July. On 23 June 1936, he wrote to the head of the government, [[Casares Quiroga]], offering to quell the discontent in the [[Spanish Republican Army]], but received no reply. The other rebels were determined to go ahead ''con Paquito o sin Paquito'' (with ''Paquito'' or without ''Paquito''; ''Paquito'' being a diminutive of ''Paco'', which in turn is short for ''Francisco''), as it was put by [[José Sanjurjo]], the honorary leader of the military uprising. After various postponements, 18 July was fixed as the date of the uprising. The situation reached a point of no return and as presented to Franco by Mola, the coup was unavoidable, and he had to choose a side. He decided to join the rebels and was given the task of commanding the [[Army of Africa (Spain)|Army of Africa]]. A privately owned DH 89 [[De Havilland Dragon Rapide]], flown by two British pilots, [[Cecil Bebb]] and [[Hugh Pollard (intelligence officer)|Hugh Pollard]],<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jul/18/post233 |title=article in the Guardian about Cecil Bebb |work=The Guardian |location=UK |access-date=2 March 2010 | date=18 July 2006 | first=David | last=Mathieson}}</ref> was chartered in England on 11 July to take Franco to Africa.

The coup underway was precipitated by the assassination of the right-wing opposition leader Calvo Sotelo in retaliation for the murder of assault guard [[José Castillo (Spanish Civil War)|José Castillo]], which had been committed by a group headed by a [[Guardia Civil|civil guard]] and composed of [[Guardia de Asalto|assault guards]] and members of the socialist militias.<ref>{{cite book |title=Modern Warfare in Spain |last=Cortada |first=James W. |year=2011 |publisher=Potomac Books, Inc. |isbn=978-1612341019 |page=43|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3_06uUe91o4C&pg=PT43}}</ref> On 17 July, one day earlier than planned, the Army of Africa rebelled, detaining their commanders. On 18 July, Franco published a manifesto<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.generalisimofranco.com/discurso11.htm |title=Manifesto de las palmas |language=es |access-date=21 July 2006|date=18 July 1936}}</ref> and left for Africa, where he arrived the next day to take command.

A week later the rebels, who soon called themselves the ''Nationalists'', controlled a third of Spain; most naval units remained under control of the [[Republican faction (Spanish Civil War)|Republican]] [[Loyalism|loyalist]] forces, which left Franco isolated. The coup had failed in the attempt to bring a swift victory, but the [[Spanish Civil War]] had begun.