Francisco Gómez-Jordana, 1st Count of Jordana
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Francisco Gómez-Jordana y Sousa (Madrid, 1876 – San Sebastián, 3 August 1944) was a Spanish soldier and politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs during the rule of Francisco Franco.
Military nobility under King Alfonso XIII [edit]
Francisco Gómez-Jordana was the son of a military man who was a Colonel in 1909, a General of Division in 1912, and later became a Lieutenant General in 1915 and one of the High Military Commissioners of Spain in Morocco.
Francisco Gómez-Jordana enrolled as a student at the Spanish Academia General Militar (Military Academy) in Zaragoza in 1892. During the Cuban War of Independence from Spain, he later went to Cuba as a second lieutenant, and was wounded there on November 23, 1896. After returning to Spain, he became a Captain at the Escuela Superior de Guerra ("High School for the Conduct of War") in Madrid. In 1911, he went to Melilla, a historical Spanish stronghold in North Africa since 1497, where he joined his father, Colonel Francisco Gómez Jordana. The younger Francisco Gómez-Jordana became a Lieutenant Colonel himself in 1912, and later a Colonel in 1915.
From July 9, 1915 to January 27, 1919, he served his first of two terms as High Commissioner of Spain in Morocco, the third registered since April 1913. He became General of Brigade in 1922.
On September 13, 1923, General Miguel Primo de Rivera, 2nd Marquis of Estella (a title awarded by King of Spain Alfonso XII in 1877), orchestrated a military coup, inspired in part by Benito Mussolini's March on Rome in the Kingdom of Italy during October 1922. King Alfonso XIII of Spain was obligated to accept General Miguel Primo de Rivera as statesman and prime minister of Spain, without calling for constitutional elections.
At the time of Rivera's coup, Francisco Gómez-Jordana was a member of the Military Directory; Primo de Rivera conferred upon him wide powers to deal with any colonial initiatives in Africa, including the "peacemaking resorts" within the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco (Arabic: حماية إسبانيا في المغرب; Spanish: Protectorado español de Marruecos). Spain had established colonial rule over this area of Morocco under the Treaty of Fez in 1912. Spanish rule ended in 1956, when both France and Spain recognized Moroccan independence.
On September 8, 1925, Spanish General Leopoldo Saro Marín, along with the French Commanders, Colonel Billot and Colonel Freydenberg, enacted a coalition naval-landing attack at Al Hoceima, Rif, in what is now referred to as the Alhucemas Landing. The attack was directed against rebel Kabilas in the north of Morocco. The landing featured the first naval deployment of tanks. The naval landing forces employed air gunfire support, directed by spotting personnel with communication devices.
Following the success of the attack, King Alfonso XIII awarded General Leopoldo Saro Marín the title of 1st Count of La Playa de Ixdain, and General Gómez- Jordana the title of 1st Count of Jordana. These titles were awarded on July 19, 1926 at the town of Úbeda, province of Jaén. Both recipients were 49 years of age. King Alfonso XIII later also honored "Africanist" General José Sanjurjo y Sacanell, for the "peacemaking actions" in the Rif, investing him as 1st Marqués del Rif in 1927.
The military actions led to the exile of Rif independence leader Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi, commonly known as Abd el-Krim, from Ajdir (in the Berber area of Morocco), a locus of the resistance movement. Abd el-Krim had been known as the creator of the Confederal Republic of the tribes of the Rif, in Amazigh: Tagduda n Arif, since 1921.
Between November 1928 and April 19, 1931, Francisco Gómez-Jordana served another term as High Commissioner, occupying thus the tenth position in the list.
Among other "Africanist" military men was Spanish General Dámaso Berenguer y Fusté (whose cadet brothers Fernando and Federico were also Spanish Generals). In 1927, Dámaso had been awarded the title of Count of Xauen for his military actions in the conquest of Xauen, North Morocco, in 1920. Dámaso acted as the second "soft" dictator (thus called at the time by Spanish civilians in comparison to General Miguel Primo de Rivera) from January 30, 1930 to January 18, 1931. His term as Minister for the War coincided with Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart, 17th Duke of Alba's term as Minister of State and Public Instruction.
The "Africanists" vs the Spanish Republic (1931-1936) & Civil War (1936-1939) [edit]
Very broadly speaking, the XVIII and XIX Military Academies in Spain had been located traditionally at Toledo, Infantry, 1850, Segovia, Artillery, 1764, Alcalá de Henares, Engineers, 1803, Valladolid, Cavalry, 1852. One joint, basic General Military Academy, Academia General Militar was created during the times of King of Spain Alfonso XII, 20 February 1882, at Zaragoza.
On 17 August 1930, the so-called Pact of San Sebastián, was led on one side by Conservative Right leaders Miguel Maura, son of Majorcan conservative prime minister of Spain, and a Duke, Antonio Maura and Niceto Alcalá-Zamora.
They bunched together with members of other rather small liberal and regionalist republican parties calling also for action to stomp out the lack of the expected modern civil liberties and progresses in Education by the Military Dictatorial prone General warrying new Counts and marquesses in North Africa, the corrupted local elections by political clients and the fear to the of future when expanding military nationalism and colonialism.
They probably felt unfair social and personal tolls were borne by the young male sons of the impoverished working classes tilling the fields and the modest farms of the inhabitants many conscripted as "glorious" soldiers and/or the worrying news on the sorrowful state of the supposedly 1920s "communist" havens, i.e., of the former Russian Empire subjects, news which leaked out through the non-censored, liberally minded sorts of news from well-meaning Spanish journalists coming from the new short middle classes describing on the local newspapers visiting there and reporting those news back here. On 14 April 1931 the Second Spanish Republic was approved by the masses after the earlier municipal elections and the dissolution of the royally approved Military Directorate (1923–1931).
It was not a question of recuperating national pride like it had happened after the spectacular defeat by the Axis powers of World War I neither there were really great needs of setting up some sort of unique national and/or racial identity or other small fry problems of American/European further to the North countries even. Even so, the Civil War was a confrontation quite apocalyptic in the consequences for many years to come.
A civil law notary Manuel Azaña and a specialist in Chemistry, Prof. of Chemistry at the University of Salamanca José Giral, founding members of the same group Republican Action Spain from the Pact of San Sebastián, too, were unwilling but quite efficient detonants of the wrath of the many of the Spanish Generals.
The quick promotions to General through the Morocco actions by the Infantry Officers and the rather scarcer promotions of the more aristocratic background Cavalry Officers left out Engineering Officers and mainly Artillery Officers out if quick climbing to the Generalate. Therefore, there were strong tensions, 1926, from the Artillery Officers toward Infantry and sometimes also Cavalry Officers related to Promotion.
It was civil law notary and self-sufficient new Minister of War since 16 April 1931, Manuel Azaña, the one chosen by the Gods of the Spaniards to provide the clue to the Army problems by closing, lock, barrel and stock, the education and the access to the General Military Academy, Zaragoza, the Director of the Institution at this time being "Africanist" General Francisco Franco, 30 June 1931.
The outcry within the ruling military heads was spectacular, the more, with the King of Spain having left the country "to avoid shedding any Spanish blood on my behalf". Trouble was thus instantly served to act in due time five years after the Great Recession and with Italy, Germany and Austria wishing to "clean" past offences from other European Nations.
References [edit]
- B. H. Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill. Germany's Generals. Their Rise and Fall, with their own Account of Military Events 1939-1945, London: Cassel, 1948; enlarged and revised edition, Delhi: Army Publishers, 1965. ISBN 0-7538-0873-0 ISBN 10: 8181580966 ISBN 978-81-8158-096-2.
- Milicia y Diplomacia: Diarios Del Conde de Jordana, 1936-1944 by Francisco Gómez-Jordana Souza, Carlos Seco Serrano, Rafael Gómez-Jordana Prats, ISBN 84-87528-45-7, ISBN 978-84-87528-45-3 or 978 (84-87528-45-7), 312 pages, Hardcover, Dossoles, Editorial, Burgos, (2002).
- ^ Beevor, Antony (2006). The Battle for Spain: the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. New York: Penguin Books, 144 pages. ISBN 0-14-303765-X.
- http://www.generalisimofranco.com/GC/protagonistas/0000E.htm
- Javier Tusell Gómez, Genoveva G. Queipo de Llano, El enfrentamiento Serrano Súñer-Eugenio Espinosa de los Monteros: el ministro de Exteriores, los militares y la entrada en la guerra mundial, Historia 16, Nº 128, 1986, pags. 29-38. In Spanish.
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