The role of the Civil Guard on July 18, 1936, was decisive in tipping the balance towards one of the sides, whether it was the insurgents or the Republic. Many authors consider that in areas where the armed institution remained loyal to the democratic Republican institutions, the military coup did not succeed. Consider the case of the two main Spanish cities, Madrid and Barcelona, where Civil Guards shared trenches with the workers’ forces.
In the Canary Islands, there was no defense of Republican institutions by most of the Civil Guard commanders, despite their Director-General, General Sebastián Pozas Perea, a Catholic and conservative, having given unequivocal instructions from Madrid to be at the orders of the democratic government. His orders to the 35,000 members of the corps across Spain were clear: “absolute loyalty to the regulatory precept of remaining faithful to their duty for the honor of the institution.”
However, the armed institution in the Canary Islands was heavily influenced by the conspiratorial networks deployed months before the coup. Franco, as the general commander of the islands, had convinced almost all the commanders in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife to join the conspiracy, with some exceptions, which we will see later. The situation was very different in the province of Las Palmas. Here, the future caudillo’s influence was less, mainly due to the power of his second-in-command in the archipelago, the military governor of the province, General Amado Balmes Alonso.
At this point, we must reflect on what explains his murder to a large extent. If Balmes had been part of Franco’s conspiracy in the province of Las Palmas, there would have been no problem in incorporating the Civil Guard, as had happened in the sister province. But that was not the case. The key figure was the provincial authority of the corps, Lieutenant Colonel Emilio Baraibar Velasco. Balmes died from a very suspicious gunshot wound to the abdomen on July 16, and if we adopt the view that he was with the conspirators, he would have had enough time to convince Baraibar to support the uprising.
But none of this happened. As stated in the court-martial sentence that condemned the lieutenant colonel, first to death and then to life imprisonment, Baraibar “was not pre-informed of the execution of the National Movement.” This is very important. How could he know nothing if Balmes was in the conspiracy? Or is it that Balmes was not in the plot, and what happened on July 16 was a murder ordered by Franco and executed by military conspirators in Las Palmas, as Ángel Viñas states. All this further confirms the thesis of the crime.
Some historians deny the evidence or are unable to understand today that conservative and Catholic military personnel, many with an Africanist past, defended the Republic on July 18. But this happened frequently throughout Spain, and many paid with their lives for defending the constitutional order.
Everything that happened in the Civil Government of Las Palmas between July 18 and 19, 1936, is interesting. By following the court-martial sentence of May 14, 1938, we can get an idea of the events. The civil governor of Las Palmas, Antonio Boix Roig, commands communication with Emilio Baraibar, who is located and goes to the government’s headquarters on Triana Street between three-thirty and four in the morning. The governor informs him that the state of war declared by the rebel military is declared illegal by the government in Madrid, and Baraibar does not hesitate to follow his orders.
This position is reiterated in the presence of the rebel General Orgaz, when he comes to the Civil Government to convince the resisters to surrender. But the leadership of the corps hesitates more than it seems, as it gives instructions to a detachment under its orders to come to defend the Civil Government but tells them to unload their rifles and not confront the Army surrounding the province’s civil power headquarters. He also spoke with Franco between 10 and 11 in the morning or at least heard him speak on the phone.
Franco asks him: “Aren’t you at my orders?”; and Baraibar remains prudently silent. He simply did not answer. The insurgents attempt another maneuver. Franco tells the colonel of the Civil Guards stationed in Tenerife to remove the lieutenant colonel. They inform Baraibar of the dismissal, but he continues to resist, arguing that the General Inspection in Madrid ordered otherwise and that the Colonel of the Tercio had no authority to remove command from a Commandery without consulting superiors.
The next day, Sunday, July 19, the resisters of the Civil Government of Las Palmas began to falter, starting with the Civil Guard forces themselves. Let’s say that the partial success of the coup in some places gave strength to the insurgents, but the loyalty of almost all the major Spanish cities to the Republic inspired their defenders. Probably, Baraibar’s ambiguous position is explained by the uncertainty of the moment, torn between his professional commitments to stand with the legal government and the push of a large part of his fellow soldiers.
What happened that morning is worthy of a farce. Orgaz reappears at the site, urges surrender, and the transfer of all resisting armed forces to the military command, after which both military and civilians would be released. This is the so-called ‘Orgaz commitment’ that would be cited two years later in the court-martial, possibly influencing the reduction of sentences for the resisters of the Civil Government of Las Palmas. Orgaz leaves, and another Las Palmas rebel, Colonel Jesús Ferrer Jimeno, arrives to execute the verbal agreement.
But the three main commanders of the Civil Guards — Baraibar, Commander Joaquín Laurerio Pérez, and Captain José García Silva — do not want to assume command for the surrender of the corps, citing the dismissal telegram they had previously rejected. This attitude of disobedience towards the coup leaders by the three main commanders diminished when they all went to the Military Government. There, Orgaz deployed all his charms, like a father with his wayward children, confirming the positions of all the Civil Guards’ resisters.
Even Baraibar himself would serve as a public order delegate for more than two months. But Franco’s unforgiving justice did not forgive. Of course, the commitment was mere paper regarding the freedom of those involved. All the civilians were arrested and prosecuted. Also, the three corps members months later. The court-martial sentenced Baraibar to death, but it was commuted to life imprisonment. The other two officers who supported their leader were also sentenced to 30 years of major imprisonment. The three were expelled from the corps and spent years in confinement.
In La Gomera, things did not go as planned. In the town of Vallehermoso, in the northwest tip of the island, the corps personnel of five remained loyal to the Republic. Leading them was Brigadier Francisco Mas García, 46, born in Carcer (Valencia), married, living with his wife and children in a rented house; also Francisco Bernal Cano, from Prado del Rey (Cádiz), 31; Pedro Campoy Gómez, from Vera (Almería), 26; Guillermo López Gallardo, from Montalvo (Cuenca) 27; and Francisco Durán Sánchez, from Magacela (Badajoz), 42.
On July 18, the Ensign Soler, the Line Chief of La Gomera, who received instructions from the Lieutenant Colonel of the Civil Guard in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, contacts Mas by phone, but Mas tells him that the state of war has been declared illegal by the Madrid government and under the Public Order Act, he must maintain order. Days later, on the 23rd of that month, they call him again to remove the town mayor and disarm the population, but the brigadier says: “I will not do that.” To other ultimatums, this time from a military detachment appearing on the town’s outskirts, he responds similarly, stating that he only recognizes the Popular Front government, order is maintained in the town and the town is armed and willing to defend itself against the Army. The next day, the clash occurred. Firstly, the rogue Ensign Soler, riding horseback with his aide-de-camp, is detained by three corps members and 25 to 30 armed civilians. They take them to the Vallehermoso barracks and are imprisoned, although Mas guarantees their physical integrity. But tension increases. As an armed column approaches the corps barracks, shooting starts from within, supported by others from nearby houses. The skirmish lasts over two hours, injuring the bugler and the leader of the military detachment seeking to occupy the town. The soldiers withdraw to Hermigua.
But the next day, July 25, events accelerate. New military forces, led by Isidro Cáceres and Ponce de León, First Provincial Chief of the Provincial Command of the Civil Guard of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, surround Vallehermoso and urge the resisters to Hermigua for discussions. They comply and agree to surrender the next day. Indeed, on July 26, eight days after the state of war proclaimed by the coup plotters, the corps members and armed civilians are disarmed and arrested. On August 19, a summary court-martial begins at the San Carlos Barracks in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It was justice turned upside down: those who had opposed the rebellion were accused of rebellion. Three were sentenced to death, including Brigadier Mas, the town mayor Ramón Cabrera Bernal, and the local Workers Federation President Manuel Quintana Florentino. No pardons were granted this time. On August 27, all three were executed, not before the brigadier wrote: “I die with great satisfaction, fulfilling my duty… and fostering blind faith and hope in the triumph of Republican legality, as it finds support from those who suffer and our Lord God” (letter reproduced in García Luis, R.: The Justice of the Rebels, p. 33).
But there’s another interesting case of a corps member who became a captain defending the Republic. His name was Francisco Martínez Fortes, born in 1910. His father, with the same name and Aguiar as his second surname, was also a corps member, born in Almería, with right-wing ideology. He supported the military coup and managed logistics during the civil war in Tenerife, using the confiscated Camacho Hotel in Tacoronte for these purposes. However, his son was not like his father, perhaps due to generational differences, but he supported the Republic unconditionally, and his friends in Tenerife were all Republicans. Francisco was born in Málaga and moved with his family to Tenerife. He studied at the Seminary for four years, then worked in Postal Services but finally chose his father’s profession. He was transferred to Tarragona and married his Tacoronte girlfriend, Ana Rosa Pérez Morales, in 1934. Shortly before the military rebellion erupted, he decided to move his pregnant wife with their second child to Tenerife to be cared for by her family during childbirth. –It is precisely this daughter, Pilar Martínez Pérez, who informed us of the case, as well as her brother Jesús–. He returned to Catalonia and got caught in the war whirlwind. They would not see each other until 1942, more than six years later.
Little is known about his war experiences, only that he was on the Teruel front, shot in the right thigh, and captured by the rebels on March 28, 1939. A corps member captured by Franco for being a Republican had little hope of surviving, but his father probably interceded for his son, as he traveled to the Peninsula to see him shortly after the war ended. However, Franco’s relentless vengeance did not stop. He was in several concentration camps for military prisoners: the Medinaceli (Soria) concentration camp, prison in Soria, then the Mozarifar (Zaragoza) concentration camp, and Montjuic Castle. Finally, in 1940, he was tried in a court-martial and sentenced to 12 years and a day in Tarragona, remaining in Pilatos Jail until mid-September 1942. He was transferred to the Fyffes prison in Tenerife and, on December 1, was released permanently. But he was expelled from the corps and couldn’t work in any profession linked to the State. His imprisonment ordeal ended, but not the survival of his growing family. The couple had six children, and thanks to his wife’s family, who had properties in Tacoronte, they managed to survive.
This is the story of some corps members who paid with their lives or freedom for respecting their corps’ ideals and remaining loyal to the flag they swore to obey.
