7 Francisco Franco 7to 1939. Thereafter, he led Spain as its dictator until his
death in 1975.
Life
Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco
Bahamonde was born at the coastal city and naval centre
of El Ferrol in Galicia (northwestern Spain). Franco
entered the Infantry Academy at Toledo in 1907 and grad-
uated in July 1910 as a second lieutenant. At 17 he was in
Spanish Morocco fighting the Rif. He rose in rank rapidly.
He was a major at 23, commander of the Spanish foreign
legion at 30, and a general at 33—the youngest in Europe
at the time. After that Franco’s fortunes rose and fell with
the change of governments.
In May 1935, he was appointed chief of the Spanish
army’s general staff, and he began tightening discipline and
strengthening military institutions. Later that year, follow-
ing a number of scandals that weakened the Radicals—one
of the parties of the governing coalition—parliament was
dissolved, and new elections were announced for February
- By this time the Spanish political parties had split
into two factions: the rightist National Bloc and the leftist
Popular Front. The left proved victorious in the elections,
but the new government was unable to prevent the accel-
erating dissolution of Spain’s social and economic structure.
Although Franco had never been a member of a political
party, the growing anarchy impelled him to appeal to the
government to declare a state of emergency. His appeal
was refused, and he was removed from the general staff
and sent to an obscure command in the Canary Islands.
For some time he refused to commit himself to a military
conspiracy against the government, but, as the political
system disintegrated, he finally decided to join the rebels.