Assassination of José Calvo Sotelo
[19] Calvo Sotelo's interventions in the Cortes (Spanish Parliament), like those of the CEDA leader José María Gil-Robles, were always the object of "contemptuous aversion" and "extreme aggressiveness" on the part of the majority of the Popular Front deputies.According to these historians, the intention of the two leaders of the non-republican right wing was to make the situation of violence in the streets profitable by elaborating an "incendiary" and "catastrophist" discourse, which was disseminated and amplified by the press of the same political persuasion.[51][52] For his part, the Italian historian Gabriele Ranzato, who does not subscribe to the thesis of the existence of a right wing agitation campaign that "justified" the coup, has pointed to Calvo Sotelo as one of those "responsible for the violence that was tearing the country apart", due to his continuous calls for the intervention of the army, a "solution of force" "desired, favored, plotted and supported by him since the birth of the Republic, of which he had always declared himself an open enemy".[81] A group of officers of the Assault Guard —among them Captain Antonio Moreno, chief of the 2nd Company—[82] left Pontejos to meet with the Minister of the Interior Juan Moles to whom they demanded in an ill-disciplined manner the immediate punishment of the culprits, whom they considered to have been Phalanx gunmen.[85] Castillo's comrades, according to Gabriel Jackson, wanted "to carry out a spectacular revenge" and "without taking into account any political party or program, and without reflecting on the great repercussions of their act, they decided to assassinate an important right wing leader".[147] For his part, the deputy Geminiano Carrascal telephoned the president of his parliamentary group José María Gil-Robles who was in Biarritz to give him the news of the kidnapping of Calvo Sotelo, and the leader of the CEDA replied: "I am leaving for Madrid right now".[167] Two days later, Friday, July 17, the evening newspaper Heraldo de Madrid reported that the special judge Eduardo Iglesias Portal had ordered the arrest of Fernando Condés, although the censorship had concealed his name and his condition as captain of the Civil Guard —according to the summary, the widow of Calvo Sotelo had recognized him in a photograph shown to her as one of the persons who had raided her house—.[218][219] At the end of the civil war, four of the Assault Guardsmen who were in van number 17 were arrested and interrogated by Franco's judges: Aniceto Castro Piñeiro,[220] Bienvenido Pérez Rojo, Orencio Bayo Cambronero (the driver)[221] and José del Rey.[229] Another of the initiatives taken by Casares Quiroga is to request the presence in the Council of Ministers of the Attorney General of the Republic and the Undersecretary of Justice, Jerónimo Gomáriz, to consult them about the two possible candidates for special judges that he intends to appoint to take charge of the respective investigations of Lieutenant Castillo and Calvo Sotelo.On the way out, the ministers —"with countenances whose gravity accentuates their circumspect sadness"—[175] are besieged with questions by the journalists, but the only one who makes a brief statement is that of Enrique Ramos: "As you will understand, we have examined the execrable events which we all regret and which, of course, have given rise to the adoption of various measures and to the judicial action which has already begun, with the appointment of two special judges.Instead of including a resounding condemnation of the assassination of one of the two main opposition leaders and committing to arrest and bring to justice the culprits —neither Luis Cuenca nor Fernando Condés were ever arrested—, the note limits itself to condemning and equating (which Gil-Robles complained about) the assassinations of both Calvo Sotelo and Lieutenant Castillo ("The Council of Ministers, in view of the acts of violence which have culminated in the death of the Security officer Mr. Castillo and the deputy to Cortes Mr. José Calvo Sotelo, facts of notorious gravity, and for the execration of which it must formulate the most sincere and ardent protests, it believes it is appropriate to make a public statement to the effect that it will immediately proceed with the greatest energy and the clearest severity, within the precepts of the law of Public Order, to take all those measures demanded by the need to maintain the spirit of coexistence among Spaniards and the elementary respect for the rights of human life") and to inform of the appointment of a special judge for each case, both magistrates of the Supreme Court (Enrique Iglesias Portal for that of Calvo Sotelo and Sánchez Orbeta for that of Castillo).[241] Alfonso Bullón de Mendoza shares this assessment: "the note given to the press could not have been more disheartening for those who expected a swift reaction from the Executive, because instead of facing the exceptional seriousness of the case, the Government drafted a bland text in which the deaths of Calvo Sotelo and Castillo were equated, assassinations which from a humanitarian point of view were equally reprehensible, but which evidently did not have the same political relevance".[254][255] The CNT organ Solidaridad Obrera complained about this in its Thursday 16 edition, which hit the streets with the front page headlines censored and with a third of the editorial blank: "Enough already: only madmen and agents provocateurs can establish points of contact between fascism and anarchism![...] This undignified and ignoble game which weakens the forces of resistance and attack on fascism coinciding in the struggle against the common enemy cannot be allowed... Let the Socialists and Communists keep an eye on the panorama of Spain, and they will see if it suits them to denigrate, insult and discredit the CNT."[266] Another left wing Republican politician who was aware of the seriousness and implications of the assassination of Calvo Sotelo was Mariano Ansó, who in his memoirs wrote: "After the revolutionary movement of Catalonia and Asturias, this crime was the greatest attack committed against the Republic.[284] The same confidence had been shown a few days earlier by the leader of the radical sector of the PSOE, Francisco Largo Caballero,[285] who at a rally held in Madrid before traveling to London had said: "If they want to give themselves the pleasure of staging a coup d'etat by surprise, let them do it...The family received countless telegrams of condolences from all over, funerals were held in many localities, black ribbons were hung, and thousands of people came to the doorway of Calvo Sotelo's home at 89 Velázquez Street or to the headquarters of Spanish Renovation to sign on the sheets of paper that had been prepared to protest the assassination.[298] The Bar Association of Zaragoza sent a telegram to the family of Calvo Sotelo, signed by Dean Monterde, which read: "Dismayed by the monstrous murder of a distinguished, glorious Spaniard, virtuous companion all his life, I protest intense indignation, impious, cruel national shame.Since its advent there has been no quiet hour, no respectable home, no secure job, no sheltered life... And if anything was missing for the spectacle to reach its last tenebrous quality, some Government agents have assassinated in Madrid an illustrious Spaniard, entrusted to the honor and the public function of those who were driving him.[304][305][306][307][18] The vice president, the first secretary and the Senior Officer of the Cortes attempted to attend the funeral, but when they arrived at the cemetery they were booed and almost assaulted by many of the attendees, among them, according to Hugh Thomas, "very well-dressed ladies, who shouted that they wanted nothing to do with parliamentarians", and they had to leave.[333] This was followed by a merciless and "Machiavellian"[334] attack against the President of the Government, Casares Quiroga, after mentioning the alleged threat he had made to Calvo Sotelo in the Cortes on June 16:[334][335] Sad fate of this ruler, under whose command the agents of authority become criminals!Sometimes it is the criminal repression of Casas Viejas on some humble peasants; others, as now, attacking a patriot and distinguished politician, true national glory; it is to him who has had the sad fate of finding in honorable bodies more or less numerous nuclei of murderers.The statement ended by announcing the withdrawal of the monarchists from the Cortes, but at the same time their commitment to "whoever wants to save Spain":[336][328][337][334][335] We cannot coexist even for a moment longer with the sponsors and moral accomplices of this act.[352] After reproaching Gil-Robles for having expressed himself in "truly monstrous" terms, Barcia resorted to the argument, used on innumerable occasions by the left, of holding the center-right governments of the previous biennium, one of whose most prominent figures had been the leader of the CEDA, ultimately responsible for the disorders.[347] The Minister of the Interior, Juan Moles, also intervened briefly, who instead of "clarifying at least all the aspects relating to the role played —before, during and after the events— by the police forces", limited himself to saying that several members of the Assault Guard had been arrested and separated from service, without giving further details.He added the falsehood ("a reflection that had neither head nor tail", according to Alfonso Bullón de Mendoza)[354] that the two agents guarding Calvo Sotelo's home had put up resistance to those trying to enter the building and that they had "demanded certain guarantees" to allow them to pass.They arrived in Lisbon on the morning of Saturday the 18th and at the Estación del Rocío, "crowded with people" —as Calvo Sotelo's daughter Enriqueta recalled— General Sanjurjo was waiting for them, who offered his arm to the widow to leave the station.[410] Joan Maria Thomàs agrees with Ranzato when he states that "the most important thing was the government's lack of reaction to the assassination of the ultra-right winger and congressman, which did not act energetically to reestablish order and disappointed those sectors that were clamoring for a change of direction.This is what General Franco said on 19 April 1938: "That Regime died definitively that sad dawn in which a seductive Government, acting as the executing arm of Freemasonry, plotted and carried out, through its agents, the vile assassination of the Chief of the parliamentary opposition and great patrician: José Calvo Sotelo".[416] One of the "proofs" provided by Bentura was the alleged meeting that Captain Condés held at one o'clock in the morning of Monday the 13th —two hours before leading the expedition that would end Calvo Sotelo's life— with the President of the Government Casares Quiroga.Abellán said that the officers of the Assault Guard who went to the Surgical Team where the corpse of Lieutenant Castillo was found "spoke of taking revenge" and that Alonso Mallol, who was also present, did not contradict them, but "remained next to the group of those who were most vociferous, and although he did not speak, it could be seen that he paid attention to what the others were saying".
Spanish Civil Warmonument dedicated to himPlaza de CastillaMadridSpanish RepublicJosé Calvo SoteloAssassinationshootingCuerpo de Seguridad y AsaltoJosé CastilloSecond Spanish RepublicAssault GuardssocialistCivil GuardSpanishAlmudena CemeteryLieutenant CastilloPopular FrontFebruary 1936 electionsIndalecio PrietoCondésSantiago Casares QuirogaRepublicManuel Azañaconspiracy against the governmentGeneral Molacoup d'état of July 1936victors in the warLiberation Crusadethe most important one, located in Madrid's Plaza de CastillaGeneralissimo FrancoJulián ZugazagoitiaGil-Robleselections of February 1936general elections of November 1933universal suffragefollowing elections, those of February 1936inorganic suffragecorporativeauthoritarianRepublican Leftproclamation of the Second Spanish RepublicPedro Sainz RodríguezuprisingEduardo AunósDictatorship of Primo de RiveraJosé María Gil-RoblesMinistry of the InteriorFalangistrevolutionaries of AsturiasDolores IbárruriMargarita NelkenFascistKerenskiKarolyCortesÁngel Galarzacaballeristseven years of dictatorshipDiego Martínez BarrioEduardo González CallejaConstitution of 1931Julio ArósteguiPaul Prestoncursus honorumJoaquín BauParque del Buen RetiroAssault GuardLieutenant José del CastilloCarlos FaraudoJulio Mangadaelected delegate for the election of the President of the RepublicFernando CondésJosé del CastilloLuis Romerofuneral chapelPuerta del SolRicardo BurilloCaptain FaraudoPhalanxStanley G. PayneAntonio Goicoecheaparliamentary immunityGabriel JacksonManuel TagüeñaLargo CaballeroOctober Revolution of 1934Hugh ThomasSpanish RenovationBiarritzIan Gibsonmonarchist flaginviolability of my homeAndrés AmadoEast cemeterycemetery of the EastRafael Sánchez GuerraFernando Suárez de TangilLuis Jiménez de Asúain fragantiConstitutionCity Council of MadridAcademy of JurisprudenceEl SocialistaBilbaoJuan Simeón VidarteLamonedaFaraudoCastilloSpanish PhalanxJosé Antonio Primo de Riveraforensic doctorsserologicalPermanent DeputationHeraldo de MadridSpanish Protectorate in Moroccocivil warbattle of GuadarramaSiege of the Montaña barracksMilitary Intelligence ServiceMoorish troopsSiege of the AlcázarPopular Army of the RepublicSupreme CourtNational Movement began on 18 July 1936Assault Guardsmen