Fancisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teodulo Franco

December 4, 1892- November 20, 1975

Commonly known as FRANCO

• He was a Spanish military general and dictator

• Head of the state of Spain from October 1936 and whole country from 1939, and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November 1975

• Francisco Franco was born on 4 December 1892, in Ferrol, Galicia, which is Spain's chief naval base in the north.

• The young Franco spent much of his childhood with his two brothers, (Ferrol, 1891–1977; a naval officer and diplomat) and Ramón (a pioneering aviator), and his two sisters, María del Pilar and María de la Paz.

Franco and his older brother Nicholas, in 1902, wearing uniform

• Military Family• Francisco was to follow his father into the

Navy but as a result of the Spanish-American War the country lost much of its navy as well as most of its colonies. Not needing more officers, entry into the Naval Academy was closed from 1906 to 1913

• He decided to join the Spanish Army• In 1907, he entered the Infantry Academy

in Toledo, from which he graduated in 1910.

• Franco soon gained a reputation as a good officer. He joined the newly formed regulares, colonial native troops with Spanish officers, who acted as shock troops.

• At the age of 23 and already a captain, he was badly wounded in a skirmish at El Biutz and possibly lost a testicle.

• Franco became the Legion's second-in-command and returned to Africa.

• The Legion symbolically, if not materially, saved the Spanish enclave of Melilla after a gruelling three-day forced march led by Franco. In 1923, already a lieutenant colonel, he was made commander of the Legion.

• In 1923, he married María del Carmen Polo y Martínez-Valdès; they had one child, a daughter, María del Carmen, born in 1926.

• his best man (padrino) at the wedding was King Alfonso XIII, a fact that would mark him during the republic as a monarchial officer.

Fall of the monarchy in 1933

the closing of the Academy, in June, by War Minister Manuel Azaña, provoked Franco’s first clash with the Republic

Franco’s enemy was López Ochoa

At the start of the Civil War, López Ochoa was assassinated. Some time after these events, Franco was briefly commander-in-chief of the Army of Africa, and from 19 May 1935 on, Chief of the General Staff.

• After the ruling centre-right coalition collapsed amid the Straperlo corruption scandal, new elections were scheduled

• Two wide coalitions formed:

• the Popular Front on the left

• the Frente Nacional on the right

• On 16 February 1936, the left won

Elections carried:

• problems in the Parlament• electoral fraud • arbitrary annulment of all election

certificates in many Right-wing constituencies, and of the expulsion, the arrest, or even the assassination, of many legally elected deputies of the Right

• Spain was in imminent danger of falling under a Communist dictatorship

• On February 23, Franco was sent to the distant Canary Islands to serve as the

islands' military commander

• He decided to join the rebels and was given the task of commanding the Army of

Africa

• On July, 1936, the rebels, who soon called themselves the Nationalists, controlled only a third of Spain, and most navy units remained under control of the Republican loyalist forces, which left Franco isolated. The coup had failed, but the Spanish Civil War had begun.

• The Spanish Civil war officially ended with Franco's victory in April 1939

During the Spanish Civil War

• The nationalist side was supported by Fascist Italy, which sent the Corpo Truppe Volontarie and later Nazi Germany, which assisted with the Condor Legion infamous for their bombing of Guernica in April 1937. Britain and France strictly adhered to the arms embargo, provoking dissensions within the French Popular Front coalition led by Léon Blum, but the Republican side was nonetheless supported by volunteers fighting in the International Brigades and the Soviet Union

• Negociations• For Franco the war was not easy because

he didn’t have money, and he had many problems.

• He requested help from Mussolini and Hitler. Both helped him.

• Franco negotiated with the United Kingdom, Italian Fascist and with the Nazis for military support too.

Resources

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Franco