Francoist Spain is the period in Spain’s history between the victory of General Francisco Franco and his Nationalist followers over the Republicans in 1939 at the end of the Spanish Civil War and his death in 1975, at which time Spain transitioned back to being a constitutional monarchy. Franco’s legacy is enormously contentious. On the one hand he achieved victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) by accepting aid from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy and his government engaged in brutal policies in the 1930s and 1940s. Conversely, he did not enter the Second World War on the side of the Axis Powers and his regime became resoundingly more liberal in the course of the 1950s and 1960s. The regime caused different types of migration over time. In the late 1930s most of this was outwards as tens of thousands of Republicans fled from their last stronghold in Catalonia over the Pyrenees to southern France. Yet by the 1960s and 1970s the regime was producing inward migration of a kind as it fostered Spain’s tourist industry. Hence the substantial expat communities in southern Spain are in many ways the byproduct of policies first pursued by Franco’s regime.[1]
Francoist Spain chronology of eventsFrancoist Spain chronology of events
In the sixteenth century Spain had been the foremost power in Europe, rich on the back of its discovery and conquest of large parts of the Americas. Nevertheless, it quickly declined once the flow of gold and silver from Mexico, Peru and Bolivia dried up in the seventeenth century and by the eighteenth century it had been reduced to a second-rate power, overshadowed by Britain, France and others.[2] By the time Francisco Franco was born in 1892 Spain had been lurching from crisis to crisis for decades, losing most of its American empire in the 1810s and 1820s and then experiencing civil wars at home, the Carlist Wars, between the 1830s and the 1870s. The country’s decline was capped in 1898 when the United States easily defeated it in the Spanish-American War, which only lasted a few months and resulted in Spain losing most of its remaining colonies, specifically Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. This rot continued into the early twentieth century as opposing factions developed in favor of retaining a constitutional monarchy and sticking to Spanish traditions, and a liberal faction in favor of creating a new Spanish Republic. The latter got their wish in 1931 when a new constitution was promulgated and a republic came into being.[3]
The Second Spanish Republic proved unequal to the task of reforming the Spanish state and after just half a decade a new civil war broke out. At the beginning of it General Francisco Franco was not the leader of the conservative, right-wing, Nationalist faction, though he became so in due course as its too more senior military leaders, Generals Jose Sanjurjo and Emilio Mola, both died in 1936 and 1937. Following this Franco emerged as the leader of the Nationalists in their war with the Republicans. With aid flowing in from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy the Nationalists gained the upper hand in 1937 and emerged victorious in the war early in 1939.[4]
Franco was established as the virtual dictator of Spain at the end of the Spanish Civil War, holding various titles over the next 36 years that he ruled Spain. Although the government he oversaw and the Falange (Phalanx) movement he headed have been described as fascist, they might more accurately be described as corporatist and Franco did not enter the Second World War despite pressure from his former ally, Adolf Hitler, to do so. His regime was oppressive early on, but with the softening of political extremes in Western Europe from 1945 onwards he began to liberalize his approach. The 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s saw an especial loosening of the repressive laws Franco and the Falange had imposed during the early Francoist years. Much of this was designed to ensure that the burgeoning tourist industry, which came into existence in southern Spain and places like the Canary Islands as a consequence of the post-war boom in commercial air-flight, was not stymied by the perception of Spain as an illiberal state. By the time Franco died in 1975 he had laid the groundwork for the emergence of modern Spain. A constitutional monarchy was quickly established after his death.[5]
Extent of migration in Francoist SpainExtent of migration in Francoist Spain
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There are two types of migration associated with the Francoist regime. Early on this was outward migration as hundreds of thousands of political exiles fled the country at the end of the Spanish Civil War. This exodus began in January 1939 as the final defeat of the Republicans by Franco’s Nationalists loomed following the fall of Barcelona, the last major Republican stronghold. Between late January 1939 and mid-February an estimated half a million Spaniards fled over the mountains along what became known as the Camí de la Retirada (Path of the Retreat). The response of the French government was not particularly welcoming and the majority of the political refugees were arrested and disarmed upon their arrival in southern France before being sent to internment camps.[6]
Less dramatic, though even more substantial in the long run, was the migration which occurred in the second half of the Francoist era as the country developed as one of the world’s foremost tourist countries. The great majority of this was of course temporary migration as millions of Germans, Brits and other nationalities flocked to the Costa del Sol and other parts of the country for a week or two every year. Over time though the idea of migrating permanently to the sun gained traction amongst a growing number of people, particularly people from Britain. Since the 1970s, millions of people have relocated to southern Spain from other countries. These are inadvertently the migratory impacts of policies first developed by Franco’s regime.[7]
Demographic impact of Francoist SpainDemographic impact of Francoist Spain
The lasting demographic impact of the exodus of Spanish Republicans over the border to France was limited. Of the roughly half a million refugees in 1939, approximately 200,000 were quickly repatriated to Spain despite the danger this placed them in. Thousands more died from the squalid conditions of the camps they were forced into in France. A quarter of a million or so Spaniards did remain in France, leaving a lasting legacy on the demography of the Languedoc and others parts of southern France.[8]
The long-term impact of the Francoist policies of the 1950s and 1960s were greater still. Having opened the country up as a tourist hotspot, more and more people began settling in southern Spain permanently in the 1970s and 1980s, aided by Spanish membership of the European Economic Community in 1985. Over time this has had a dramatic impact. Today there are over eight million foreign-born people living in Spain, making up one-sixth of the overall population. There are over 400,000 British expats living in the country alone, with an estimated 4,500 joining that community every year. In decades to come second and third generation expat settlers in Spain will be able to trace their family’s settlement in Spain back in some ways to policies which were developed initially in Francoist Spain.[9]
See alsoSee also
Explore more about the Carlist WarsExplore more about the Carlist Wars
- Spain, Baptisms, 1502-1940 records collection on MyHeritage
- Spain, Marriages, 1565-1950 records collection on MyHeritage
- Spain, Catalonia Third Territorial Military Courts and Tribunals records collection on MyHeritage
- Spain, Republican Army Casualties, 1936-1939 records collection on MyHeritage
- Matrimonio a la española: marital customs & marriage records in Spain at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
References
- ↑ https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/francisco-franco
- ↑ https://www.worldhistory.org/Spanish_Main/
- ↑ Carlos Álvarez-Nogal and Leandro Prados De La Escosura, ‘The decline of Spain (1500–1850): Conjectural estimates’, in European Review of Economic History, Vol. 11, No. 3 (December, 2007), pp. 319–366.
- ↑ Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 (London, 2007).
- ↑ Stanley G. Payne, Falange: A History of Spanish Fascism (Stanford, 1961).
- ↑ https://www.france24.com/en/20190209-france-spanish-civil-war-republican-refugees-la-retirada-80th-anniversary
- ↑ Sasha D. Pack, ‘Tourism and Political Change in Franco’s Spain’, in Nigel Townson (ed.), Spain Transformed: The Late Franco Dictatorship, 1959–1975 (New York, 2007), pp. 47–66.
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/09/franco-spain-refugees-haunted-by-the-past-retirada
- ↑ https://www.ine.es/daco/daco42/ecp/ecp0123.pdf