The Pete Quiñones Show - Pete Reads 'The Last Crusade' by Warren H Carroll Part 2

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

40 MinutesPG-13Pete begins a reading of Warren H. Carroll's 1996 book, "The Last Crusade: 1936." In this episode, he covers April-June: the Spring of 1936.Antelope Hill - Promo code "peteq" for 5% off - https://antelopehillpublishing.com/FoxnSons Coffee - Promo code "peter" for 18% off - https://www.foxnsons.com/The Last CrusadePete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'VIP Summit 3-Truth To Freedom - Autonomy w/ Richard GroveSupport Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

There's so much rugby on Sports Extra from Sky. They've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place.

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There's a snake. I want the fox and that rabbit. All right, carrots. Any idea where you want to start it. Disney Zootropolis 2 in cinemas November 28. Good luck. I love you. If you love amazing Christmas value, you love this fantastic offer on celebrations, roses, heroes, and quality street tubs. All now only $3.99.

An amazing low price on elite Kimberly Biscuits was $1399, now only $9.99. Great value on these must-have Tato and King Party Boxes was $5.49, now only $4.99. If you love Christmas, you love Aldi. While stocks last, Kimberly and Party Box offer available until November 30th. I want to welcome everyone back to part two of my reading of Warren E. Carroll's The Last Crusade. All right, before we get into this, reminder about Thomas and my, our movie reviews, and you go to Freemam Beyond the Wall.com for slash movies, links to them all there. And we're going to do another one real soon, new one, don't know yet, letting Thomas pick this one out.

And then Antelope Hill. where if you like to read books like I do, you can go over there. And if you put Pete Q, all lowercase, in the field when you're checking out, you get 5% off. All right. Let's get this going. This chapter is going to run in spring, and it will run up to the real kickoff of fighting. So let's see how this leads up. So, all right.

Spring, April through June. This is 1936. Spain's Spanish Civil War By an unbroken tradition extending all the way back to the fall of the Roman Empire in the west the Archbishop of Toledo is the primate of Spain For Toledo is Spain's ancient capital crowning a gigantic crag towering

Over the Tagus River in the midst of a broad dry plain Toledo is virtually impregnable to attack It has never been stormed against a vigorous defense In the whole history of war in Spain after the Moors had held Toledo for more than 350 years, the Christians regained it by negotiations in the time of El Cid. They glorified it with one of Spain's most magnificent cathedrals. Isabelle and Fernando built here their splendid church of St. John of the Kings. The banner, St. John of Astoria, carried into battle against the Turks in Lepanto hung in Toledo's church at the Holyoke.

cross. In one of its humble parish churches glowed the greatest work of Spain's supreme painter El Greco, who dwelt in Toledo for most of his adult life, the burial of the count of Orgos. On May 6, 1931, shortly after the flight of King Alfonso the 13th, and the formation of the Second Spanish Republic, Cardinal Pedro Segura, Archbishop of Toledo, and primate of Spain, issued a pastoral letter, urging his flock to respect and obey the new government and to participate actively as Catholics in its political life. But he also made a point of praising the departed king, and it was known that he believed the establishment of a republic was not good for Spain. His alleged interference in politics, because of these sentiments, was made an excuse for the burning and looting of many Spanish churches a week after the release of his pastoral letter. on returning in June from consultations with Pope Pius X. 11th in Rome,

Cardinal Segura was arrested and expelled from the country on the intriguing charge of endangering the public spirit. Two months later, the government declared, though utterly without authority to do so, that he was removed as Archbishop of Toledo and stripped of his Episcopal rank. The reason given for this action was that he had instructed the Spanish bishop bishops to sell church property and send the money out of Spain before the anti-Catholic government could confiscate it. I wish they would have done that when, never mind. Thinking about England and, oh well. At this point, Pope Pius X. 11th was trying to cultivate

better relations with the anti-Catholic governments in Catholic countries, such as then existed in Mexico as well as in Spain. He was hoping that the anti-Catholic provisions of the Constitution of the Second Spanish Republic, then still in the drafting stage, might be removed or moderated in response to concessions by the church. Therefore, in October, the Pope consented to Sigurdas removal and exile. After a long wait before naming a replacement in 1933, he appointed as the new Archbishop of Toledo, Isidro Goma, a Catalan who had been the rector of the seminary at the Archdiocese of Tarragona for more than 20 years, and the bishop of Tarasona. He was reputed to be a political moderate, sympathetic to the Catalan

nationalists. In 1935, the Pope made him a cardinal. But serious churchmen cannot be measured by political standards. Cardinal Goma could read the signs of the times in the spring of 1936 as well as any communist or carlist. He knew they pretended far more than a mere strife of parties, that for the first time in its Christian history, his country faced a strong possibility of the destruction of his traditional faith. He did not yet believe the time had come to declare openly all that he foresaw, but in a letter

to Father Lettachowski, General of the Jesuits, which order had already been expelled from Spain as Cardinal Segura had been, he let the warning bells toll. Quoting, With reference now to the general state of things in Spain, prospects are frankly most evil

with no remedy to be seen, humanly speaking. The revolution is triumphant, without scruples in its advance to secure its grip, with the insensitivity of the government in the face of the unheard of atrocities that the church has suffered in recent weeks, the threat of applying the aesthetic constitution and its totality,

the confusion of the political elements of the right, some drawn apart from others by angry grudges, loss of the spiritual rigor of our Christian people, the effect of past disillusionments, economic burdens, the eminence of municipal elections, which will bring revolutionary principles, and practices into the heart of the people, fearing cowardice, which has debilitated organizations of religious,

the restriction and reduced circulation of the Catholic press, the imminent establishment of greatly expanded lay education, such as the spectacle that this moment shows us. No remedy for this appears but an extraordinary providence of God. If there were any doubt of the truth of this warning by the primate of Spain, it was laid to rest by comments made by Prime Minister Azan, in the Cortez, April 3rd and 16th, in response to criticisms of the government's conspicuous failure to protect the churches. Quoting,

The Republican government and the president do not undertake to justify anything or explain anything away. We must examine this situation like men and understand things in their broad human sense. I am scandalized that anyone should state how horrible that three churches have been burned. I also say, if not how horrible, what nonsense and what a pity. I am persuaded that flames were endemic to Spain. In the past, heretics were burned, and today's saints, even if in the form of statues or images. Statues or images for now.

There's so much rugby on Sports Exter from Sky, they've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time, we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. That's the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place.

Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jampack with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only. Standard Pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. Hops and Wild?

Wild and hops. The dream team. They're back in Disney Zootropolis 2. Funny books. This is a make or break assignment. In cinemas November 28th. No snake has set foot in Zutropolis in forever. Don't miss.

The eldest adventure of the year. There's a slew! I want the fox and that rabbit. All right, carrots. Any idea where you want to start? Disney Zootropolis 2 in Cinema's November 28. Good luck! I love you!

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If you love Christmas, you love Aldi. While stocks last, Kimberly and Party Box offer available until November 30th. Continuing, attacks on churches and objects of holy devotion were evidently amusing to the chief of the Spanish government in the spring of 1936, a matter for joking rather than for action. But there were no joke to the church's committed enemies or to her committed defense. On April 3rd, the Cortez, holding its first formal session since the election, chose Diego Martinez-Badio, a political ally of Azania, as its presiding officer and proceeded immediately and surprisingly to impeach President Alcalo Zamora, a move the majority of the cabinet had decided upon the preceding day. The grounds, oddly enough, were his dismissal of the previous Cortez when the Constitution prohibited the president from dismissing the Cortez more than one. in his five-year term of office.

The oddity was for a government to impeach his president for calling an election that brought them to power. But the Popular Front government did not trust Alcalo Zamora. Knowing that he remained the Catholic and was opposed to revolution, they feared he might dissolve the Cortez for a third time and call another election and even support a military coup against them. The right regarded Alcalo Zamora as a weakling or worse, and made no effort to save him. His political fate was sealed.

On October 7th, he was removed from office to be replaced the next month, as was the government's intention from the beginning, by Azania, who had no Catholic sympathies nor much use for the military, and would do nothing that might return power to the right. Azania does not seem to have been significantly involved in carrying out the surprising deposition, which Salvador de Madadadavad, madariaga, extravagantly condemned as the most glaring denial of logic the history of a free nation can show. Alcalo Zamora left Spain for South America just before the Civil War broke out in July and never came back.

His removal had virtually no effect on the immediate political situation, but had one important and unexpected long-term consequence. One of the most Republican generals, Gonzalo Kieppo de Yano, a rakishly handsome, arrogant and contentious figure who had been thrown in jail by Primo de Rivera and had turned against the Catholic Church while enrolled in a seminary in his youth, had a daughter married to Alcalo Zamora's only son. Kiepo deiano was outraged by the impeachment of his daughter's father-in-law. On April 13th, he visited General Mola, now in Pamplona, to tell him he wished to join in the rising against the government being planned

and soon persuaded General Miguel Camanelaus, Cabanaisas, Tabaniaas, sorry, another Republican stationed at Segovia to do likewise. Kiepo deiano, a man of extraordinary dash and daring, unfortunately almost his only admirable qualities, played a vital role, if not always, savory role in the history of the first months of the Spanish Civil War.

Had it not been for the removal of Alcalo Zamora, he would probably have fought on the other side. His initial service to the rising was indispensable, but later his cruelty and injustice introduced its Catholic and crusading character. April 14th, two days after Easter, with the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic,

the day before Falongists had shot and killed on a Madrid street, a judge who had sentenced one of their members to 30 years in prison for murdering a distributor of socialist newspapers. During the public commemoration of the anniversary in Madrid, an unidentified man, probably a phalanist, attempted to kill Azania with a bomb. Azania was not injured, injured, but one of the assault guards, a police force generally loyal to the government, shot and killed a member of the Civil Guard, whose loyalties were mixed like the armies, whom he believed was preparing to shoot Azania.

To think that the revolution could be stopped by shooting the helpless Azania was the height of folly, but logic did not flourish in Spain during these tumultuous days. The funeral of the Civil Guardsmen three days later was the occasion for, a gun battle between socialists and Falunists during the funeral possession and another between Falunus and assault guards at the cemetery. Lieutenant Jose Castillo of the assault guards played a leading part in the cemetery battle, earning him the bitter hatred of the Falunists. At least 12 people were killed in the fighting.

Gil Robles, speaking in the Cortez, delivered another solemn warning. Quoting, When we, the parties that act within legality, begin to lose control of our masses, we begin to appear failures in their eyes. The idea of violence to fight against persecution starts to germinate among our people. A time will come when, as a citizenly obligation of conscience, we shall have to turn to our masses and tell them, within legality you have no protection because the law,

which is the supreme guarantee of the rights of citizenship, does not enjoy the government's support. In our party, we cannot defend you. With anguish, we must tell you to go to other organizations, to other political nuclei that offer you at least the attraction of revenge. End quote. At a public meeting on April 18th, the day after the bloody funeral of the civil guardsman, the Socialist Party of Madrid formally demanded that the forthcoming National Congress of the Socialist Party

called openly for the dictatorship of the proletariat, seizure of all church property, and suppression of all religious orders. Once again, the centrality of the religious issue in the buildup to, as well as the waging of the Spanish Civil War was unmistakably demonstrated. Just across the French border in the Pyrenees, Prince Javier of Bourbon Parma, now the designated heir of the childless Alfonso Carlos, to whom the religious issue was central also,

had taken up residence in the little town of San Jane de Luce during Holy Week. Every few days he conferred with Falcande or the Carless military leaders in Nevada. the Carlist continues to operate independently of the regular army generals, except for Varela, who was imprisoned in Cadiz during April, and Sanjuro exiled in Portugal. General Mola, though stationed in the capital of Carlos Nevada, was not yet working with them. During the latter part of April, he crossed the Rubicon with a confidential circular letter to selected officers whom he felt he trusted, quoting, the most grave circumstances through which the nation is passing owing to an electoral pact,

the immediate consequence of which has been made to make the government prisoner of the revolutionary organizations, is faithfully leading Spain to a chaotic situation that can only be avoided by means of violent action. Therefore, the elements that love the country must have necessity organized themselves for rebellion with the aim of conquering power and imposing, therefore, order, peace, and justice. once again, what most people know about the Spanish Civil War is that a freedom government was elected and a bunch of evil right-wingers sought to overthrow it. When you start telling them about the amount of churches that were burned, the amount of clergy that were killed, the bombings of civilians that were blamed,

on the nationalists, Frank those people. I mean, they don't, they've been told something. I really think, though, right around, right now, people are really open to hearing a alternative, you know, revisionist history, from revisionist sources. I think people just realize that, you know, I think there was a meme going around. If the news is fake, just think how fake history is.

So that's why I'm doing this. May Day was marked by strikes and parades in most of the principal cities of Spain. Thousands marched down Castellana Street in Madrid, making the clenched fist salute, singing the Marxist hymn International, carrying portraits of Lenin, Stalin, and Lago Caballero. Caballero. Prieto, speaking in Quimca, in central Spain, called for socialist entry in Tuzania's government and denounced, quote,

excesses that leave behind as evidence of the people's exertions, some charred images, some burnt altars, or some church doors blackened by flames, end quote. He warned of the growing danger of a military coup. Largo Caballero's followers accused him of supporting such a coup and began threatening his life. These were not idle threats. Before the month was over, where Prieto was shot at and wounded by some of Largo Caballero's militant followers while speaking at a socialist rally in a Sia, barely escaping in a car through a hail of bullets. Sounds peaceful, right?

I mean, this is the, you know, this guy's on their side, basically. I mean, during May, membership in the Spanish Communist Party reached 60,000. A total comparable. to the listed membership of the Socialist Party, not counting membership in the giant UGT Union. On May 4th, a number of churches in Madrid were attacked. Three nuns and two laywomen were killed by a mob, and several monks and nuns attacked and severely beaten.

Early in May, Carlis Prince Javier was in Portugal conferring with General Sanjuro. They agreed that if the Carlist and the Spanish Army rose together against the government, Sanhuro would head a provisional government for the right. restoration of the monarchy, not specifying the monarch to be restored, but if the Carlos had to rise alone, Sanjuro would support Alfonso Carlos as king. Sanjuro sent a letter to Mola by the prince, which assumed he would lead any army uprising which might take place and another letter to Alfonso Carlos declaring his respect and adherence to him. If not quite a full endorsement of Alfonso Carlos claimed to be king, this was very close to it. Sanhudo seemed on the verge of

becoming a car list, as Ruella had done. On May 10th, a special electoral college convened for this one occasion overwhelmingly voted Azania president of Spain. The electoral meeting was enlivened by fistfights in the corridors between supporters of Largo Cajero and Piriato. On the same day, the anarchist union CNT, was holding its National Congress at Zaragoza, capital of Aragon in northern Spain. It denounced the Azania government as too conservative and voted to accept Largo Caballetto's offer of revolutionary syndical unity so long as the socialist continued to refuse collaboration with the moderate left or the existing political system of the republic and to move directly toward the total destruction of the existing political

economic order. Yeah, this is just a republic, right? It's like North Korea. People's Republican, just a republic. Yeah. Follow their names, yeah. National socialists, yeah. They were Marxists.

Yeah. It's right in the name. Socialist, right? Fuck up morons. The Congress's political program included the closing of all churches, the seizure of all factories, and all tracks of more than 50 hectares of land by the people who would then set up the Confederation of Autonomous Communes, which was the only form of government acceptable to the anarchists.

They need not have worried about the Socialist Party entering the government, despite Prieto's call for it. On May 12th, the Socialist Deputies in the Quarthe's Cortez voted 49 to 19 against doing so. The left newly elected President Azania, this left, newly elected at President Arzania, no alternative, but the formation of another minority government staffed by left Republicans, but spurned by both socialists and communists. He then gave this task, thankless task, to Santiago Cesaras Kiroga, a thin, nervous, tubercular

Galician with a burning hatred of the church but little capacity to lead. A few days before becoming prime minister, Cesaro Kiroga had told Calvo Sotelo that social revolution does not worry me. Most of his cabinet ministers were drawn from Azanya's left Republican party. Speaking to the Cortez for the first time as prime minister on May 19th, Sissaras Kiroga pledged total hostility to fascism and said he needed no support outside the popular front. Despite the excesses of the Falunge, still forming a small minority of the Spanish right, fascism was hardly a principal danger in Spain at that moment. As Galvo Saltello declared in a thundering speech before the Cortez May 29th,

quoting, Parliament is haughtily, pompously presiding over the Spanish anarchy. The legislative power gives an impression of normality, while all the other powers, the whole of Spanish life, are the personification of chaos, disorder, and abnormality. You are living on anarchy, because to repress it, you would have to forfeit the political oxygen which these extreme forces give you. Have the courage to die slaying anarchy and Spain will be saved. On May 30th, Mola, writing to Sanjuro, recognized the older gentleman general's leadership and rights ahead the provisional government to set up after the projected military coup, while Sanjuro acknowledged Mola as a woman.

as director of the plans for the Army rising. Mullah's plans included a fallback to Carlos Nevada and a fight to the finish there if the rising failed elsewhere. During June, he made the first specific assignments of officers to command the rising in various cities, though many of them were later changed. But the two most important assignments did not change, General Franco and Colonel Juan de Yake to Morocco. Despite being separated from Spain by the straight to Gibraltar. Morocco was vital to the uprising because since the RIF war, in which the Native Muslims of Morocco had first defeated the Spanish and then been defeated by them, the greater part of the Spanish professional army was stationed there. Only soldiers of long service could be counted

on to follow orders to strike against the constituted government without qualms and danger of mutiny. This was especially true of the numerous Moroccan Muslims the Spanish had taken into their army who cared nothing at all for the policies of Spain. Yake, a blunt and hard-hitting soldier, who was one of the few high-ranking Spanish officers then to sympathize with the Falungei, was already in Morocco and could plan the rising there in advance. Franco was isolated on the Canary Islands out in the Atlantic and would have to be brought to Morocco, where he had gained a high reputation for courage and good fortune in the war against the Muslim rebels. Despite his relative youth, he was 40 years.

he was one of the highest-ranking Spanish generals. He had been commandant of Spain's military academy and thereby had come to know most of the officers. Though usually cold and aloof in public and a poor public speaker, he could be charming and personal conversation, was not overbearing in manner, and was generally well-liked and trusted. Most officers in personal touch with him would obey him in a crisis.

No one then thought of Franco as the leader of the general's uprising. That was to be Sanjuro, as soon as he could be brought in from Portugal, for the time being it was Mola. But Francisco Franco was destined to become Claudio of Spain for 38 years, one of the most controversial figures in modern history. In presenting Franco, we must first divest ourselves of myth. He was not a tyrant or an oppressor, and certainly no totalitarian. He may have been too severe toward his enemies, but he never enslaved his own people.

He was not eager for power, though he came to believe God had chosen him to say, spain from destruction and persecution of his fellow Catholics. He did not allow elections to choose a government or a completely free press, because to him that meant a return to the revolutionary anarchy of the Second Spanish Republic, but during all his years of rule after the Civil War, the Spanish people could say that they like, say what they liked in the cafes and plazas, and regularly did so. He opposed Hitler, frustrating him in his plans by sheer stubbornness in 1940, the year of Hitler's great power. It didn't oppose him.

Hitler asked him for help, if I can think three or four specific things that he wanted that wouldn't tax an army that had just gone through the war. And Hitler sending the Condor Legion to basically help win the Spanish Civil War, he expected something in return. and he didn't get it. So going on. He accepted arms from Germany and Italy during the Spanish Civil War because no one else would give or sell him any, and the Soviet Union was supplying Largo Caballetto's government with

large quantities of some of the best weapons. In the spring of 1936 in the Canary Islands, Franco walked in the Valley of the Shadow. He and his adored wife and daughter were under 24-hour guard against assassination. Always a strong Catholic. His faith became far more profound under these conditions. In the words of Stanley Payne, a noted historian of Spain, his thoughts turned more to religion than at any previous time in his life. Franco's practice of almost daily devotions dated from these months. This intensified religious life in turn contributed to what eventually became a sense of mission. Of Franco, Paul Johnson has well said. Quoting, The Nationalists won the Spanish Civil War primarily because of the capacity and judgment of Franco.

Though Franco was an unlovable man and is unlikely ever to win the esteem of historians, he must be accounted one of the most successful public men of the century. His cold heart went with a cool head, great intelligence and formidable nerves of courage and will. The soldier statesman he most resembled was Wellington, a figure much admired in Spain. Franco thought war was a hateful business, from which, which gross cruelty was inseparable. It might sometimes be necessary to advance civilization. He was in the tradition of the Romans, the Crusaders, the conquistadors, the terseos of Parma.

Franco was never a fascist or had the smallest belief in any kind of utopia or system. I will have to correct that. I mean, they won, they wouldn't have won that war without Adolf's help. I think Franco would admit that. going on. Franco was short and pudgy and looked insignificant, except for his large and commanding dark brown eyes. But he had a lion's heart and a steel hard backbone.

More than any other man, he saved Spain from the worst faith that could befall any nation in the 20th century, conquest by communism, giving his people instead a generation and a half of peace, security, prosperity, and personal, if not political, freedom in which the Catholic faith was restored and flourish throughout the country. The Valley of the Fallen will stand against the sky as his monument when all the venomous critics are dust. When all his venomous critics are dust, well, I think we know what happened. During the spring of 1936, many Catholic schools throughout Spain were closed and some physically destroyed.

On June 3rd, Seda-Cortez deputy Pabon said that in Central Castile alone, from April 20th to May 15th, That's 25 days. Seventy-nine schools with over 5,000 pupils had been burned down or closed. On June 4th, Gil Robles, with most of the Seda deputies, walked out of the Cortez because of what was being done to the Catholic schools, but the government was obdurate. Socialist deputies stressed that the Constitution required the closing of Catholic schools and should now be rigorously enforced on this point.

Education Minister Barnes declared on June 4th that the Catholics must leave their schools because they had not done enough to develop secular state education when they controlled the government. God was to be excluded from all Spanish education come what might. On June 4th, Mola had his first meeting with a major Carlos leader, Jose Oriel, Carlos Chief in Alava, Alava province. Oriol offered Mala full support in his planned uprising and put him in touch for the first time with Falconde. On June 9th, Mola met with the Count of Redesno, a Navariz, who had been Secretary General of the Traditionalist Communion for all Spain before Falconde. He promised Rodesnos that the old red and gold flag of Spain, which the Republic had abolished, would be flown by the armies of the uprising. Meanwhile, on June 5th, Mullah circulated a secret memorandum on how Spain would be governed after the military coup. The existing constitution would be suspended and the court says dismissed in a directory of officers consisting of a president and four others would act as provisional government ruling by decree until a new constituent assembly met.

However, the republic would be maintained rather than the monarchy restored. and the church and state would continue to be separated. This was contrary to Carlos' goals, so on June 11, Falconde sent Jose Zamaneo to Mola with a set of firm Carlos conditions for supporting the military uprising Mola was planning. It was to be conducted under the red and gold flags of the monarchy. Mola had already promised that to Dodezno. The Republican constitution was to be scrapped. The state was to be Catholic.

rather than secular. Political parties were to be abolished and a corporate state established in which different social elements were represented rather than the whole population of legislative districts voting for representatives of the Cortez. In five, the provisional government must have a carless member of education, propaganda, and church relations,

while the minister for local government and corporations was to be either a carlist or someone fully acceptable to them. Mullah replied to the Zamanio, two days later, that these terms were inadmissible and would commit the new state to sectional interests. On June 16, Falcande came to Pamplona to meet Mola. They conferred all day at the Ires Monastery near Estaya, which had been the Carless Capitol during the third Carless War, 1870 to 76. Mola, unyielding, gave Falcande his memorandum on June 5, stating his intention to maintain the republic and the separation of church and state.

Falcande reiterated the demands he had sent his Zamanio to make on June 11th. The two stubborn men did not like each other in class repeatedly. No progress was made. On that same day in Madrid, Gil Robles presented the latest statistics on revolutionary destruction since the February elections. 160 churches totally destroyed. 269 mainly political murders and 1287 assaults in the same category. Quoting, a country can live under a monarchy or a republic with a parliamentary or presidential system, under communism or fascism, but it cannot live in anarchy.

Gil Robles cried. Now, alas, Spain is in anarchy. During the next few days, Miguel Mata, the Second Republic's First Minister of the Interior, spoke out after a long silence. Spain, he said, confronted nearly three million revolutionaries in the anarchist union CNT and Largo Caballero's militant socialist union UGT, about one and a half million in each. The republic, which he had helped to create, had been transformed into a tool of the revolutionaries. Miguel Mora, a Republican who was to support the government during the Civil War, spoke the simple hard truth with which quotations already presented. in this book have amply proved, but which many historians of the Spanish Civil War and its causes

still refuse to face. Quote, today the Republic is no more, though I would like to believe unconsciously that the tool of the violent revolutionary sector of the working classes, which, shielded by the liberal democratic system and the blindness of certain leaders of the Republican parties, is preparing in minute detail an assault in the government and the extermination of capitalist and middle-class society. They tell us this themselves in their newspapers and public meetings. If the Republic is to be this, it is inexorably condemned to swift extinction in the hands of those who claim to be its defenders, or, which is more probable, at the hands of a reaction from the opposite direction. On June 23, Franco made a last appeal to the government by writing to Prime Minister Kasadas Kiroga, warning him that recent events were imperiling the discipline. of the army, a rather transparent reference to the prospect of a military coup.

Kasaros Kiroga did not reply. The next day, Mola signed his approval of the planned rising of the regular army in Morocco under Colonel Jagwe to be signaled by a coded telegram which Mola would send at the appropriate moment. All his arrangements with the generals were made, but he held up the signal while he continued his negotiations with the Carlis. though Mola did not like the Carlos political program, he had come to realize that without active carless support, at least in Nevada, there would be no rising there. The Astridian troops stationed there

under his direct command were unreliable, since their province, which had revolted against the government of Leroux and Gil Robles in 1934, had been deeply penetrated by the left. Mola probably knew that the carlis were also sufficiently well organized and prepared. in many other parts of Spain to make their support exceedingly valuable. Indeed, only they could give the rising a genuinely popular character, make it more than a strictly military coup. On June 30th, he met with three principal Navarre's carless leaders, the Canada Dostna,

Joaquin Balas Tena, and Jose Martinez, Bitteson. They seem more flexible to him than Falcande, more eager to join the rising regardless of the, the nature of the new government it would install, but the carliss were highly organized throughout Spain and had a strong military force in being the Rekete ready to put into the field. Molda needed the support of the whole communion and only Falcande could give it to him. The stakes were very high. Military coups have been frequent in the history of Hispanic countries and sometimes their governments last for many years, but none endure for very long, historically speaking.

Military men can rescue a country and rule it through a time of crisis. A particularly gifted general like Franco may rule for a lifetime, but in the end the soldiers will return to their barracks and civilians must be found to govern. Without clear new principles to guide it, civilian government would reflect at best merely the personal interests of its leader, at worst, a renewal of revolution. The new Catholic Spain, which the Carlyss sought could not be built by generals alone. The Carls must have a major part in creating it, because in the end, only they fully understood and could preserve it.

Mola would not give them that role. Franco, wholly non-ideological as he was, never really understood the Carls, nor gave them power. But Sanhudo, son of a Riquete father slain in the Third Carles' War, might have done so. He was their hope. And to him, they now turned. All right. So all of this is just building up to getting Franco out of Canary to Morocco and then getting everybody back to the mainland from North Africa.

I think the history of this is incredibly important because it's basically a religious war. and I think anybody who is very familiar with the Spanish Civil War and what led up to it can look at the United States right now and see that they could... This is a lot of that echoes here. So just to... I wanted to do this again, say this again,

because it's pretty incredible when you start looking at the numbers here. It was, yeah, trying to find the numbers of how many. Yeah. So I said during the next few days, Miguel Mora, I spoke a long time. Spain, he said, confronted nearly three million revolutionaries in the anarchist union CNC. So the anarchist union of CNT had three million revolutionaries ready to fight. And we're talking about some of the most vile disgusting people who've ever lived. You'll find out.

Largo Caballetto's militant socialist union UGT, about one and a half million in each. Not much better people. So you're looking at five million revolutionaries. And if I do a quick little population count for, see if I can pull up Spain's population in 1936. So in 1936, they had, there were five million revolutionaries, leftist, Marxist, scum in a country of 25 million people. one fifth of the country was revolutionary scum and there was still more there was still a larger section of the country

that was going to side with the government yeah this is just about a republic right they want a freedom and they want a peace and evil right-wingers rose up and overthrew next episode we'll get into july and that's really when things start going. The hit the gas pedal. I'm looking at my little. Yep. That's what we're coming up to. All right.

So there were some ads during this. If you want to get the episodes early in ad-free, freeman me on the wall.com forward slash support. He could support me there. Patreon, subscribe. Star Gumroad substack, substack where I'm doing a few extra videos every week. Not very long videos, but just talking about what's on my mind when I first wake up in the morning and looking at anything that's been happening recently or just Evergreen Topics.

So yeah, do that and drop in, keep listening because it's just going to get way more insane. I've already read this book. It's going to get way more insane. I'm trying to get a couple guests to come on actually and do some reading with me and maybe an expert or two. All right, until episode three. Take care. Bye.