Spain after Franco and the Role of the Monarch

  Francisco Franco, also known as Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde was born on December 4, 1892, in El Ferrol, Spain, to a naval family. His interests to become a sailor, short-lived when the Naval Academy reduced its admission size and forced him seek an opportunity in the Army at the age of 14. In 1910, while he was completing his duties at the Infantry Academy, he decided to go abroad and flight in Spanish Morocco in 1912. In 1915, Franco was deemed the youngest captain in the entire Spanish army. In 1928, he became director of a new general military academy. In 1934, after being appointed to Major General by a new rightist government, he ferociously crushed a rebellion of miners, where thousands died. In 1935 he became Chief of the Central General Staff of the Spanish Army, and began to reform.

As divisions between the left and the right in Spain grew, and as the country’s unity unraveled after a left wing alliance won power in elections, Franco appealed for a state of emergency to be declared because he feared a communist takeover.

He moved to Morocco, took control of the garrison army, and then landed it in Spain. Later, Franco was chosen as head of state by the nationalist forces, due in part to his reputation, distance from political groups, because the original figurehead had died, and partly because of his inspiration to lead.

Franco’s goal was to do more than win and he wanted to ‘cleanse’ Spain of communism. He drafted laws making any support for the republic a crime.

The first real ‘peacetime’ test for Franco was the start of World War 2, in which Spain initially lent towards the German-Italian Axis. 


However, Franco kept Spain out of the war, which also lead Hitler to reject due to Franco’s high demands, and a recognition that the Spanish military was in no position to fight. The US and Britain allies, both contributed Spain in keeping them neutral. Therefore, his regime survived the collapse and total defeat of his old civil-wartime supporters.

During the war and the early years of his dictatorship, Franco’s government executed tens of thousands of “rebels”, imprisoned a quarter of a million, and crushed local traditions, leaving little opposition, yet his repression loosened slightly over time as his government continued into the 1960s and the country transformed culturally into a modern nation.

In 1947, Franco’s petition passed, which immediately made Spain a monarchy that would entitle him to rule the country for life. Then, in 1969 he announced Prince Juan Carlos, eldest son of the leading claimant to the Spanish throne, as his official successor.  

He was the head of the government of Spain until 1973 and head of state until his death in 1975 from suffering with Parkinson’s for many years. Three years later, Juan Carlos reestablished democracy, which lead Spain into a modern constitutional monarchy. Juan Carlos was King of Spain and would ascend the throne vacated 44 years ago by his grandfather, Alfonso XIII.

The Spain and Europe era ended abruptly after the death. During the postwar years, Franco confounded his numerous critics by taming a naturally rebellious nation that had spawned anarchy and by bringing Spanish society into the modern industrial age, yet, like most dictators, he was persistent and never giving up.

Franco concluded that with the 1947 Law of Succession, which declared Spain a monarchy, yet later he decreed that within eight days of his death his power would devolve upon Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón, III.