1920-1939 | Backing repressive regimes | Spain

17 MARCH

ByAlisdare Hickson

BRITAIN SECRETLY APPOINTS A LIAISON AGENT TO FRANCO’S FASCIST REBELS

Franco’s rebel troops with captured Republican militia – There were many mass executions. Cassowary Colorizations – CC BY 2.0 – via Flickr.

[ 17 March 1937 ]

On 17 March 1937, the Cabinet agreed to appoint a liaison agent to Franco’s fascist rebels in Spain, but decided to keep the project secret as ministers realised that any acknowledgement of such a move would provoke uproar in the House of Commons and among the public.1  They knew they were in effect legitimising an uprising led by Spain’s generals which had already murdered many thousands of people suspected of sympathising with the democratically elected government in Madrid, in many cases butchering entire families.

FOOTNOTES

  1. Peter Day, Franco’s Friends: How British Intelligence Helped Bring Franco to Power in Spain, Biteback Publishing, London, 2012, p. 122.

© 2020 Alisdare Hickson All rights reserved

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