“Tenía una deuda con él”

Francisco Franco he did not move to save the paredón of his first brother Ricardo de la Puente Bahamonde. The commander of Tetouan-Sania Ramel Airport in the Marruecos Protectorate, an aviator who had previously been denied an Asturian mine during the 1934 revolution, maintained his loyalty to the Republic during the episodes of July 1936.

In addition, when you go to the airport to take the steps of the fighters stationed in Marruecos under the levadas and to be informed about the movement of your family member against the coup, you should not stop and allow them to be carried out. A gesture that illustrates the perfection of fries retaliatory policy which will follow in the following years.

Despite all this, the two documents that Franco addressed to the Queipo de Llano in August of this first year of the war, in which he asked for a pardon for them, are surprising. Miguel Campins (Alcoy, 1880 – Seville, 1936). This veteran of the colonial wars in Marruecos was a general at the front of the military forces in Granada. Como De la Puente Bahamonde, soon responded to the coup’s call to arms. But what is the reason why the future dictator loses the leg that did not sleep him in the election of his prime minister?

This is one of the questions that is looking for answers Lorenzo Silva (Madrid, 1966) en su nueva novela With nobodywhere the life of General Campins runs. It conveys to the writer the episodes that shaped the character of this character and that led him to rise above the norm that prevailed at the time and that separates him from what is usually associated with the profile of the African army today: ultra-conservative, colonialist, reactionary and, last but not least, arrogant.

No more pills for Silva, the “faithful” character. In 2017, the novelist published They will record your name (Destiny), which told the first-person story of General Aranguren, the supreme commander of the Civil Guard in Barcelona, ​​who chose not to join the Sixteenth Force and remain loyal to the legitimate government of the Republic.

For this reason, and for his previous immersion in African warfare, the novelist claims in his interview with El Cultural that the protagonist of his new work came to seek him out. “En They will record your name A person from Campins will appear to you, but I could not help looking at it with reluctance. At the presentation of this book, he approached me with a story from Campins and offered to adapt his child’s life as offered by the family archive. I’ll give you time to think it over and start thinking about this man’s life.”

Silva notes that this was the beginning of an investigative process in which he discovered “fascinating details”. An anomaly that is usually known in the circle of Africanists is: “It is a very different profile that we usually associate with veterans from Marruecos. Nadie was the most Africanist as she entered in 1911 and did not leave until 1927.. It’s in all the important episodes: Annual, Alhucemas, Chaouen… it’s absolutely in every part. Also, as an officer of the state mayor, he has to train all the combat units.”

The period Campins ended with a philosophy that can be summed up in the words I wanted a soldier to describe: “Extremely greedy for the blood of his soldiers”. Respect for the death of his comrades, as well as his enemies, led him to transform into a sensible leader who was prepared to sacrifice the lives of his men in vain.

Consider Silva that this form of leadership should not be confused with artificial hair. “Unlike others, what you do is a deep-seated sense of duty to protect the lives of your soldiers. When you have to carry out an operation, you may make decisions that will inevitably lead to the death of some of your soldiers.” It is said that a soldier was good for fighting, though he should not desire it“.

Thanks to this talent, Campins scored one of the great successes that marked his military career. It was in 1934 that the President of the Generalitat de Cataluña, Lluís Companys, proclaimed the Catalan State. In this context, Domingo Batet, Captain General of the Army in Catalonia, praised General Alcoy for the task of suppressing the rebellion in the city of Girona. Tarea que complió con honores: blood loss was minimal, only two deaths. “In Catalonia you can decide co no hubo bajas,” says Silva. “It is impossible to say what happened to Franco in Asturias, who was a carnicería.”

The future leader of sublevado y Campins were for previously known stories. First, it goes back to the early years of the Marruecos war. It took place in 1912 under fire from the caudillo and restored the Sidel property. Franco was indeed a young man at only 19 years of age, while the soldier Alcoy reached the rank of captain at the age of 31.

Later, the returns change due to no fateful coincidences: Franco confided in his famous barracks to a medrar in the military army thanks to the war merits he accumulated by volunteering for choque tropes, while Camps have appeared on various occasions with bureaucratic obstacles making exit difficult.

Subsequently, both wanted to match in 1928 in very different conditions in the opening season Zaragoza Military Academywhere Franco left the burden of the director and the student camps. Over the next three years, the two soldiers developed a friendship that extended to their two families. Sin embargo, the main character With nobody He was never part of the ideological camaraderie of his superior.

This detail will help you understand Franco’s attitude in 1936 when his old friend’s storm was looming. Well, we sent two documents to Queipo de Llano, the main instigator of the execution just a few days before the military commander of the city of Granada, “Soon I had to live to avoid it”by Lorenzo Silva. “He might have had more, to be sure, but for that he had not the strength to support him, he was not always the leader of the subdued party. He wanted much to lose at Seville, whence they were to execute at Campins, which was little less than a virrey.”

A writer on the soil of these media colors of the former leader of the famous Marruecos tropes explains: “On the whole, Franco respected him as a man of dignity, a man who did his duty. It was a university center down to the cable.” I knew what I thought was about Deberwith full credit that I have not lost a drop of blood”.

“Por agadura – continues the writer about Franco’s intervention -, He knew Queipo very well, with whom he did not get along very well. I guess I felt like the guy landed the camps unfairly. That’s why we felt the need to do something. It wasn’t much, of course, but since it was Franco, it was Franco first. So much so that he had to judge himself too much when he had so much at stake.’

Miguel Campins was executed on August 16, 1936, after he broke the second card of his subdued comrade who called for a commutation of the death sentence. The infamous and improvisational announcer of Radio Sevilla could not be forgiven for disobeying his direct orders on various occasions.

Franco, yes, replied Queipo de Llano later, in the language best mastered by these two rebellious senders. When Domingo Batet, the man who neutralized Catalonia’s 1934 declaration of independence, was sentenced to death to avoid the Burgos putsch, Franco turned a blind eye to Sevillians’ pleas for mercy. An eye for an eye, which I felt was the final balance of the deaths of men condemned for their loyalty.