The general who turned the rising into victory and ruled Spain for thirty-six years as Caudillo
The last war communiqué of 1 April 1939, signed in his own hand: “Today, with the Red Army captive and disarmed, the national troops have reached their final military objectives. The war is over.” Thirty-six years of dictatorship began.
A career officer who made his name in the colonial war in Morocco and became the youngest general in Europe at thirty-three. His use of the Army of Africa to crush the Asturian miners in 1934 fixed him in the eyes of the right as the restorer of order, and in July 1936 he joined the rising, flew from the Canaries to Morocco and, with German and Italian transports, ferried the Army of Africa to the mainland. In October he was made commander-in-chief and head of state of the rebel zone, and the Unification Decree of 1937 fused the Falange and the Carlists into a single National Movement under his personal rule. Victory in 1939 was followed by mass execution and imprisonment under the Law of Political Responsibilities, costing tens of thousands of lives. He declared non-belligerence in the Second World War while sending the Blue Division to the Eastern Front, and broke out of postwar isolation with the Pact of Madrid and the Concordat of 1953. The growth that followed the Stabilization Plan of 1959 became another pillar of the regime; he named Juan Carlos his successor in 1969, and with his death in 1975 the regime itself began to come apart.
Career Timeline
- 1892Born into a naval family in Ferrol, Galicia
- 1907–1910Trained at the Toledo Infantry Academy
- 1912–1926Fought in the colonial war in Morocco, second-in-command of the Spanish Legion, brigadier general at thirty-three
- 1928–1931Director of the Zaragoza military academy until the Republic removed him
- 1934.10Used the Army of Africa to crush the Asturian miners' rising
- 1935–1936Rose to chief of the general staff, then was posted to the Canary Islands by the Popular Front government
- 1936.07.18–19Joined the rising, flew to Morocco in the chartered Dragon Rapide and organized the airlift of the Army of Africa
- 1936.10.01Proclaimed Generalísimo and head of state of the rebel zone at Burgos
- 1937.04.19Fused the Falange and the Carlists into a single National Movement by decree
- 1939.04.01Declared the war over and began mass execution and imprisonment under the Law of Political Responsibilities
- 1940–1943Met Hitler at Hendaye, declared non-belligerence and sent the Blue Division to the Eastern Front
- 1953–1955Signed the Pact of Madrid with the United States and a Concordat with the Vatican; UN membership in 1955 ended his isolation
- 1959Abandoned autarky with the Stabilization Plan and entered the years of high growth
- 1969–1973Named Juan Carlos his successor; in 1973 his prime minister Carrero Blanco was assassinated by ETA
- 1975.11.20Died in Madrid; buried at the Valley of the Fallen until his exhumation in 2019