3: 1931: Madrid: The Fall of the Monarchy and the Proclamation of the Republic
<< 2: Oxford || 4: 1932: Barcelona >>
I went to Spain by train,
changing at Irun because, while France had standard-gauge track, Spain’s was (and
still is) broad-gauge. My first shock came when I entered the station men’s room.
Scrawled in black on the wall was “¡Muera el rey!” (Death to the King!). In the
English press there was little mention of this hostility to him; the fact that his wife
Victoria Eugenia de Battenberg was of the British royal family helped his cause in
England, but Spaniards stressed that she transmitted hemophilia which made the succession
dangerous. In fact, the youngest son Juan, the father of the present king, Don Juan
Carlos, was free of it, thus saving the dynasty. I have since wondered if that graffito
was simply an expression of leftist republicanism, of Basque nationalism, or also, but
this is improbable, of Basque hatred of that royal line, since the Basques had supported
the rival Carlist line.
I spent the first night in
San Sebastian, a beautiful resort on a shell-shaped beach (la Concha), not for from the
French border. Now it is a hotbed of ETA Basque nationalist terrorists, but that was
unknown there in those days. San Sebastian was proud of the fact that well-to-do families
spent the summer there to escape from the heat of Madrid and most of Spain, which has nine
months of invierno (winter) and three months of infierno (hell). While there was no terrorism,
there was, even more than in Catalonia, an active nationalist movement which wanted a
federal republic. Republican leaders had met there in the autumn of 1930 and signed the
Pact of San Sebastian. I heard no mention of it, but it became an important document when
the republic was proclaimed and the Basques and Catalans demanded that the pact be
honored.
My next stop was Burgos.
Spanish trains were primitive, and the passengers mostly poor. In each train there was una pareja—a pair of Civil Guards armed with
rifles; they always traveled in pairs for self-protection. An elite group—soldiers
were demoted one rank when they joined—the Civil Guard was the symbol of harsh law
and order and as such was commonly resented. Today the Basques want them out as the symbol
of Castilian imperialism. Despite their grotesque hats, they inspired respect in me,
although the sight of them with their rifles slung over their shoulders seemed odd.
The train chuffed wearily up
from the pleasant coast to the highlands, going through the small town of Hernani, which
Victor Hugo chose as the name for the hero of one of his dramas about Spain. The line then
goes down to valley of the Zadorra to Vitoria, the capital of Alava, one of the three
Spanish Basque provinces and now the seat of the autonomous Basque government. The line
crosses the Ebro, which flows east to the Mediterranean, at Miranda del Ebro. Climbing up
to the Montes de Oca, it goes through La Bureba region,
where the Castilian language was born. With the Reconquest of Spain from the Moors
the language spread south, becoming known as Spanish, and across the Atlantic as far as
Patagonia. It one of the world’s great languages.
Soon the line reaches
Burgos, now a bustling city, but in those days a sleepy little cathedral town, God bless
it; it has lost its ancient quaint charm. The cathedral is one of the most beautiful in
Spain. It was dark when I entered. Old women were praying with a devotion I had not seen
in northern countries. Next day I toured the cathedral. The eleventh-century Spanish hero
El Cid (from the Arabic word for lord) was from the village of Vivar, just north of
Burgos; hence his name Rodrigo Ruy Díaz de Vivar; the village is now known as Vivar del
Cid. His Arabic title betrays the fact that he was an adventurer who fought for both sides
during the Reconquest, of which legend has now made him the Spanish hero. Spanish liberals
have tried to debunk him as the symbol of old Spain. Certainly his dubious morality is
embodied in a wooden box proudly displayed in the cathedral. The Cid filled it with sand
and pledged it to two Jews, Rachel and Vidas, saying that it was full of gold. The
Cid may have been a cheat, but the Jews are not that stupid. His defenders claim that he
repaid the loan.
I took an evening train to
Avila, arriving there in the early morning. It was dark and cold, but fortunately there
was a coal fire in the station waiting room. I huddled by it, waiting for the dawn. When
it was light, I walked toward the city walls. The streets were deserted, but I passed a
priest, waiting for his first mass. We saluted each other solemnly. In the city there was
a stand selling churros—sticks of dough
boiled in olive oil. To a hungry young man they tasted like ambrosia, but today they would
make me sick. The gaunt stone city of Avila with its massive walls stood out sharply
against the blue sky. Storks flew around or perched on their nests. Avila, more than any
other city, embodies the spirit of the rocky highland of Old Castile, just as its most
famous daughter Santa Teresa expresses the religious tradition of this tierra de santos y de cantos—land of saints
and boulders.
From Avila, the train took
me over the Sierra de Guadarrama range to El Escorial on the foothill overlooking the
plain where Madrid is located. From his stone bench, Philip II could survey the progress
of the great monastery he was building as well as the plain where he was transforming a
village into the capital of Spain. Even liberal Spaniards who dislike Philip II view the
Escorial as the embodiment of the greatness of the Spain of his time. Little did I realize
then that Spain was to be torn by a Civil War at the end of which Franco would build the
huge underground mausoleum, El Valle de los Caídos, as a burial place for himself and the
dead of both sides. It really is an echo of El
Pudridero, the crypt in the Escorial where the bodies of the kings of Spain were
allowed to rot (hence the name) before they were buried in splendor. Felipe II, who
watched mass every day from a room overlooking the altar, rests today in the church in
splendid isolation.
My next stop was Madrid. We
had arranged an exchange by which the son of a Madrid family would stay with us in
Winchester. My good mother, who never warmed up to the French boys who stayed with us,
took a great liking to the Spanish boy, who displayed indeed the human qualities which
make Spaniards in general so attractive. The family with which I lived had a modest
apartment overlooking a colorful and noisy street market. The father, who dominated the
family, worked for a savings bank called Previsores del Porvenir—Foreseers of the
Future, a name which turned out to be totally wrong as far as the depositors were
concerned. The bank had impressive quarters on the Gran Vía and put out a magazine making
it appear that the customers belonged to some kind of a club. It promised fabulous returns
at the end of twenty years, and every day at meals the father would make speeches about
the dazzling plan. Wishing to show that I was appreciative, I began paying monthly
installments from my meager resources. The Civil War suspended operations; after it I
received a circular letter saying that the bank was conducting a ponzi scheme. I have
always wondered if the father was fooled too or whether he was an unscrupulous salesman.
It was the de Osma
Scholarship which took me to Madrid, and more precisely to the Instituto de Valencia de
Don Juan. Pleasantly located at Fortuny 43, just west of the great Castellana avenue, it
is primarily a fine arts museum. It was founded in 1916 by Guillermo J. de Osma and his
wife the Condesa de Valencia de Don Juan. Its collection of Spanish art, especially of
Morisco pottery is remarkable; I was impressed, but too ignorant to appreciate it fully.
My closest contact there was Pedro Longás, a portly, serious priest who always wore his
black cassock. He was the institute’s literary scholar, and librarian. With Martin de
la Torre he edited the Latin codices in the National Library. The first and apparently
only volume appeared in 1935, just before the Civil War which. forced almost all my Madrid
acquaintances who were not killed into exile. Since so many priests were killed, I have
often wondered what happened to Don Pedro. I believe he was in nationalist territory and
survived.
Obviously my Madrid
experience was dominated by the fall of the monarchy. The dictatorship of General Miguel
Primo de Rivera had ended in January 1930. It was not really a harsh dictatorship, not a
dictadura (hard) but a dictablanda (soft). Many Spaniards, especially the
Basques and Catalans, resented his rule, while the intellectuals were especially resentful
because he scorned them. The army was much in evidence. Many churches and other old
buildings had been turned into barracks. In Old Castile I had visited a monastery used as
a barracks. The commanding officer let me in reluctantly. Hoping to impress him, I said my
sponsor was Salvador de Madariaga. I could not tell from his face whether he did not know
the name or whether he despised the liberal intellectual.
Primo de Rivera died a
simple, lonely death in Paris soon after his dismissal. As his successor, Alfonso XIII
appointed General Dámaso Berenguer, who convened the parliament (Cortes) for March, 1931. Just before I arrived in
Madrid, Alfonso XIII set up a new government under Admiral Juan Bautista Aznar on February
17, 1931. Perhaps Alfonso XIII doubted the loyalty of the army because of the December
1930 military uprising in the Pyrenean town of Jaca led by two crazy young captains,
Fermín Galán and Angel García Hernández. They were captured and shot while they
marched on Saragossa. They became martyrs to the republican cause, and the King, who was
blamed for insisting on their execution, lost more popularity. To ease tensions, he
scheduled municipal elections for April 12, 1931.
Their precise results have
still not been established, but all the major towns voted republican, and this was taken
by the crowds as a mandate without waiting for elections to parliament. The King realized
that the game was up, and on April 14 he and his family sailed to Italy. The Republican
leaders were embarrassed later to realize that they had failed to get him to sign a
declaration of abdication. Monarchists were saddened by this course of events. I clearly
remember a cover picture in the monarchist paper ABC
of Count Romanones sitting desolately in the railroad station of El Escorial after
saying farewell to Alfonso XIII. In Madrid the public mood was one of rejoicing. It was an
unusually bloodless revolution. Crowds strolled happily through the sunny streets. The
Republicans claimed that they were restoring ancient liberties and that the blue in an old
flag symbolized those liberties. The old red-yellow-red striped flag lost one red stripe,
replaced by a deep blue one. It happened that the capes of the police had a deep blue
lining, so they draped the cape over their shoulders to show their republican sympathies.
The crowds appreciated the symbolism and applauded. No one realized that a civil war was
in the making.
The transition was not
abrupt. The new prime minister, Niceto Alcalá Zamora was a lawyer from Andalusia, and
both he and Interior Minister Miguel Maura were Catholics. However, the cabinet contained
others who were opportunists and demagogues, notably Foreign Minister Alejandro Lerroux, a
founder of the Radical Party and the boss of a notorious district of Barcelona. An
anti-clerical, he was remembered for a 1905 speech in which he exhorted a crowd to raise
young nuns to the status of mothers. Another anti-clerical was his right-hand man in the
cabinet, Diego Martínez Barrio from Seville, a strong Mason in a country where that meant
secrecy and anti-clericalism. Many of the republican leaders had ties with the
anti-clerical Institución Libre de Enseñanza, described elsewhere. Here then, within the
government, was the fatal religious split.
Another problem was the
irresponsibility of many “intellectuals” who backed the republic. While I had
the greatest respect for men like Salvador de Madariaga, other struck me as poseurs.
Already in 1931 I was
becoming suspicious of the famous authors of the period. Ramon del Valle-Inclán
(1866-1936), the author of four exotic fantasies called Sonatas, was a clown, an extravagantly eccentric
character. Posing as a conservative in his youth and as a radical in his old age, he
wanted to show that he was bucking the trends. Pedro Salinas (1892-1951) as an author was
fantastical, but as an individual and as a university professor he was a solid citizen.
When I called on him he must have wondered what was wrong with me, since I had an awful
stomach attack; I had just eaten my first meal of
calamares en su tinta, rubbery “squid in their ink”, a favorite Spanish dish
and an acquired taste which I never acquired. Pedro Salinas was solicitous and kind. Just
as I recovered, Valle-Inclán swept in, a strange bearded figure wrapped in a cape. I had
told Salinas that I would like to meet some authors, so Salinas introduced me and
suggested that I meet with Valle-Inclán for a chat. Valle-Inclán said he would be
delighted to chat with me, and when I asked him when and where, he insisted that any time
was fine with him. I suggested noon next day in his hotel, and he readily agreed. So I
arrived on time with one of his books which I hoped he would autograph. He had not turned
up by one, so I asked where he was. “Está en el café” was the reply—in
his habitual cafe with his friends. I left a message that I would return next day at
12:30, which I did, but by 1:30 he had not arrived. So I said I would return the next day
at one, with the same result. The next day I proposed 1:30, with the same result. My
humility and patience were wearing out, so I decided to make one last try at 2:00 the next
day. Always the same reply—he must have spent his life in the cafe. Now quite angry,
I left the book at the desk with the request that he sign it. When I went back, he as
usual was not there, but the clerk gave me my book in which he had written in his
flourishing hand “To my old friend Ronald Hilton.” These were kind of people who
thought they were ordained to run Spain.
I returned to England by
another route, taking the train to Zaragoza, and then up to Jaca (the scene of the
uprising of Gabriel and Galán) and across the Pyrenees to France. I learned a grammatical
lesson which I have often told my students. A man in my compartment had two botas —typically Spanish leather wine bottles
with a spout. The trick is to hold it about a foot from the mouth, hold your mouth open
and then squeeze the leather do that the wine shoots into it. It was a skill I had never
acquired. The two botas were full of thick red
wine from La Rioja. French customs allowed each traveler to carry only one, so the man
asked me to take one through customs for him, which I did.
When we got into the French
train he invited me to take a swig of the wine. Realizing the challenge I faced, I
declined, but he insisted three times, which, under Spanish rules means that one must
accept. With great misgiving I did. I held the bota
a foot away, opened my mouth aimed and squeezed. I was a poor shot. The thick wine made a
big red patch on my white shirt. General puzzlement. I tried again, raising my sights.
This time I was hit in the eye, and I was literally red-faced. For a third try I chose the
middle route. This time my aim was good, but the wine hit my uvula, triggering a violent
coughing spell. By this time the compartment was looking at me as if I were demented.
Sitting next to me was a
priest. He clearly decided that I was mad and dangerous, so he buried himself in his
breviary. I decided to prove to him that I was sane and harmless. Just before reaching
Pau, the line crosses the Gave river, The train stopped on the bridge. Hoping to establish
reasonable contact with the priest, I pointed to the river and asked him in French if it
was la Gave. It was a terrible mistake. Gave is
masculine in French, therefore le Gave. The
priest thought I said la gare—the railroad
station. He was confirmed in his belief that I was insane, pointing at the river and
asking if it was the railroad station. He answered with obvious alarm “pas encore!”—not yet! I was not aware of
my mistake. Having asked the question and got the same reply three times, I gave up. As
the train pulled into Pau, the priest showed the courage of the martyrs. As we got out, he
asked me “Where are you going my son?” “To Paris” I replied. He took
me by the arm, led me across the platform, urged me to get in and said slowly and clearly
“This train will take you to Paris.” After he took off, I belatedly realized my
mistake. I used this experience to impress on my students the importance of grammar in
language and of using the right gender of nouns.
<< 2: Oxford || 4: 1932: Barcelona >>
