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Chapter 1. The Dark Clouds

1.0. The Awakening

January 1th, 1936 06:00 AM.
The president Niceto-Alcala has just awoken. The New Year party have been moderate, lasting only until 02:30 AM, but his age has started to show, his head was dizzy and didn't understand at first why he have awaken at such early hour in the first place. After a minute, he decided to open the windows of his apartment, in order to get some fresh air.
Winter in Madrid was mild compare to other european capitals, especialy the northern ones, but some snow was falling.Niceto look at the snow getting on trees and houses for half an hour, enjoying the scene of snow flakes falling down, getting blowed up by the wind, then falling down again, only to get melted onto the warm street. Then an ideea strike his mind, allowing him to see the truth : the lifes of men are the same as the snow flakes, eventualy melting away after some useless flying. As an eminent scholar, an ilustrious writer and thinker he has indulged himself to some most primitive and instinctual needs, greed and self preservation.
After been president of Spanish Republic for five years, since the king Alphoso XIII has abdicated in 1931, he couldnt present even to himself any kind of acomplisment. Changing eight governments in these time he only did a game of preserving his power at all cost, at the expenses of the country. By manipulating the republicans against the right wing, the socialist against conservators, the liberals against the syndicates, he had only keep his post.
In 1934 those politics maneuvres have made the situation bad enough that the asturian miners revolted, seizing the town of Oviedo. Only the intervention of the army, led by general Franco, manage to settle things, at the expenses of some hundreds of human lifes.
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This brutal intervention of autorities have manage however to prevent another revolt, in Catalonia.

After remembering all these, the president knew that he couldn't get another mandate, nor did he wanted anymore. But still, just less than two months until the elections, he can try to do something good for the country, to redeem at least in his own eyes. He telephone immediately his friend and head of the government, Manuel Portella, and ask him to call a government meeting, at Palacio Nacional, 11:00 AM.
 
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1.1. The Meeting

January 1th, 1936 11:00 AM.
The presidential office in the Palacio Nacional of Madrid. After all the members of the government have enter the room, Niceto make a small sign, and the guards closed the big oack doors.
All the security measures have been taken to ensure the complete privacy of the discutions, the Presidential Guards been present with triple efectives, both in the palace as in the huge courtyard, were they were suplemented by a brigade of the newest apllied technology, namely armoured cars.
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Manuel Portella, a very experienced politician, head of the government, rise an speak: 'I declare opened this extraordinary government meeting. The president has the word.'
Niceto took a sip from his cup of coffe, than adress the ministers:
' The reason for this meeting is the extremely bad situation of our country. As the first president of the republic, I must and will assume the blame. For five years, since the king abdicate, nothing has been done, the situation only getting worse each day.
Our country have the highest unemployment percent in the whole world, 30%. Other countries have experienced this during the Wall Street crisis, then recovered, while we don't. A rough estimation is that from a population of almost 25 millions, more than 5 millions men and women are unemployed. Our factories have a deficit of 780.000 workers, still nobody is getting hired. The landlords are complicating the situation further, by maintaining a grain selling monopol and by discouraging the peasants to increase the production, so that the prices remain high.
We also remembered what has happened in '34 in Oviedo, and how we have manage the situation. After the revolt was out, in order to calm the population spirits, I have fired the general Franco, for alleged abuse of power and unnecesarry brutality against the population. This lead us to the actually most dangerous problem we face, the army officers corp. I ask our Chief of Staf, the onorable general Miaja, to detail the issue.'
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The general Miaja was more of a right-wing political orientation, than the right-center of the president, but he have allways put the national interes before personal goals.
He open his briefcase and produce some files, all bearing the inscription 'SRE Strict Secret'.
'First I must show the Spanish Republican Ejercito status.
The continental forces total 114,100 soldiers, as follow, 8 Inf, 1 Cav, 1 Mtn and 1 LArm, plus 4 brigades.
In the few ramaining colonies, we have 30,500 soldiers, grouped into 5 Inf and 1 Mil, most of them not at full strenght, except the Ejercito de Africa, the former elite troops of general Franco, half of them been spanish, other local arab and berber tribesmen.
The air forces have only 3900 pilots and staff, with 3 Int, 2 Str and 3 Tac.
Naval forces present themself a little better, with 10,675 sailors and 2 old battleships, 5 light cruisers, 4 destroyers, 2 submarines squads and 4 military transport convoys.

The problem with our army is the huge number of officers, as we have more than 20,000. Many of them should have retired already, at least 3255, and lot of them are incompetent and lazy. That shouldn't a problem, but all of them are been paid very high salaries, since the begining, and have grown used to that. The state can't manage to keep on paying them forever, as the sum of money is five time bigger than all the rest of military expenses.
On the other hand, cutting the salaries and reducing the number of officers, will surely lead to revolts, because of their connection with the high classes of spanish society. At least half of them are related to landlords, industrialists and bankers, and the other half are sustaining the first for political protection.'

Gentlemen, the president Niceto concludes, we have to improve in the following areas of interes : industry and working force, agriculture and the army. First we will introduce some new laws and then start the actual work.
 
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1.2. Steamroll Engine

January 1th, 1936 15:00 AM.

Newspapers, radio stations, posters have started to announce in Madrid and all over the Spain the new laws enacted by the president.

Law 1.36
Art.1 The Law 14.31 is abrogated, allowing the Spanish Republic to enlarge is sphere of diplomatic activities, by either joining military alliances, or enancting new ones.
Art.2 Resolutions of the League of Nations will be considered legitimate reasons to impose sanctions against other countries, ranging from economic embargoes, to direct military operations. However, the Spanish Republic will be independent in deciding if the above mentioned resolutions are implemented or not.

Law 2.36
Art. 1 Regional working force administration centers will be established, with the primary activity of coordinating the unemployed workers reintegration in the proper fields of work, according with their professional qualifications.
Art. 2 The working centers will organize local comitees for distribution of food and other supplies to the unemployed workers, for a period of one month after their enrolment in the reintegration process.

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The public response was a positive one, local sindicalist leaders having speeches in the main industrial centers of Madrid, Barcelona an Valencia. The immediate result was a drop in the disidents numbers, some of them even joining the republican party.
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Unknown to the public, the prime minister Manuel Portela started also an ambitious research program. Because the economic power of the republic didn't allow a full scale investment, it was decided to reduce the main research bugets from five to three, by this providing full financing and facilities for the remaining ones.
After a carefull analysis of both feasible devlopments and available reseach teams and institutes, it was decided that basic machine tools development will use the first budget. New infantry equipment will be research and tested, and also some tabulating machines, which in time will help speed the whole research process.

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This is my first AAR. Maybe it is wrong that I was comparing with others AAR-s, and gaining a false impresion that lot of comments are mandatory.
I will continue tomorrow with a new chapter, as today I have worked a lot and didn't find time to write anything.
 
1.3. Army reforms

January 2th, 1936 09:30 AM.

Having arrived in the evening at his headquarter in Taragonna, general Miaja and his staff started early in the morning to analize the dossiers presented yesterday by him to the president.

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'Gentlemen officers, we must implement a three steps plan in order to achive some tangible results regarding the military situation.
First, new commanders must be commisioned to each army corps, preferably specialized in logistical matters, but also loyal to the republic.
Next we have to improve the army capability to assure security in the military districts, by creating some independent brigade corps, assigned to the regional headquarters, and also relocate some of them. The third stage will be the upgrade of the equipments, but that is a long shoot, as for the momment we don't posses new army technologies, neither the organizational and economic capabilities to do so. Any sugesstions ? ' , Miaja addresed the gathered generals.
Lt.General Rojo Luch, an eminent teacher at the Military Academy of Madrid, write a list of officers to be considered for the commanding posts. He also propose the relocation of Ejercito de Africa, from Ceuta to Seville, for better supervising, as the loyality of those troops was uncertain at best.

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After some further discution, another two relocations were decided, Tropas de Sahara should go on Ceuta, as the Rif region must be guarded. Comandancia de Canaris will temporary train in the Jaen region of the continental Spain, and also guard the ore mines.
Ordnance production plans were postponed for the moment, as a report from the Armament Minister was needed.
As the two heavy cruisers that were in different production stages in the dockyards of Valencia and Taragonna, were to important for the navy, the number of workers assigned to that project was increased from 340,000 to 600,000, ensuring full speed of production.

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General Miaja was thinking for a long time about the spanish military doctrine, and how inadecvate for a modern war was, but after taking into consideration the period of reorganization and the inevitable confusion during the process, decided to postpon it until the political situation will be favorable. However, he evaluated the time needed for reform, and came to the conclusion that around seven months were needed.
 
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1.4. Diplomacy and economics

January 2th, 1936 11:20 AM.

The prime minister Portela was looking at a file just received from the foreign minister Joaquin Cadaval.

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'Our president is right, we must become more interventionists, we simply can't ignore what is happening elsewere !' exclaimed him.
'For example this Japan. They are so greedy, that they took a province from their own vassals, the Manchukuo.The province in cause, Xilinhot, has no industry, no natural resurces, virtualy no population and the infrastructure is form only by three roads. We can say with no doubt that the province have no value whatsoever.
Meantime, let see what we can do for us.'

The report from Armament Minister was clear, the industry have a shortage of oil. A huge one, as we don't posses any natural oil deposits, and we can obtain only one tone of artificial oil from ten tons of coal. The stockpile is enough for less than two months.
Good news is that we don't have any shortages of coal, iron ore or rare minerals. The production of army supplies can function at full capacity.
National Bank of Madrid have also sended a report, stating that the tresury reserves are only 20 millions in gold, and the money incoming flows are not enough to sustain even three research budgets. At this rate, we will deplete the treasury in less than a month.

Conclusion was that trade deals must be made with other states, in order to obtain oil and money. Payment methods can be either raw materials, or army supplies.
For three days, the Commerce Chamber have worked almost non-stop to identify the potential bussines partners, and to evaluate the quantities and odds of every possible deal. Some countries who didn't have very good relations with Spain,
still cut some mutual advantageous deals, while some boast about their cordial relations, and refuse to sell us anything. Details of the trades were to be kept secret for the moment.
 
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1.5. Defence Industry

January 6th, 1936 11:05 AM. Taragonna Army Headquarters

After the international trades have been finalized, and the army supplies stockpiles were at full level, general Miaja finally received the report from Armament Minister. He hasn't show any signs of loosing his patiance, since this report was extremly important to him, and didn't want to antagonize with the minister.
The main issue was the industrial capacity available for the military production. Even if the army supplies production have retained 40,000 workers over the minimum necessary, in order to generate surpluses available for future trades, the Armament Minister was able to guarantee 900,000 workers and the afferent industrial capacity. This meant that he could produce something else beside the two heavy cruisers.
For the time been, tank production didn't make sense, due to heavy cost and old models available. Still, an organic armored capability was necessary for the infantry divisions. He decided that three armored cars brigades should be builded, one for each main army corps, and that should get top priority. To appease the navy officers, next in the production line will be a Sub Type II squadron, then an AT brigade and a ART one.

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Lt. General Gamir Ulibarri also proposed that some militia type units should be created, but his proposal was postponed for the time been.
 
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1.5. Dark clouds over Madrid

February 2th, 1936 14:23 AM.

As general Miaja have predicted so well in the secret government meeting of january the 1th, the measures took by the presidet Niceto-Alcala have managed to upset the old spanish elite, but for the moment only the industry tycoons were the one to show it. By imposing some employment and working regulations, a small increase of the working force was registered , 62340 new workers been hired. This has lead to an increase of the industrial capacity, but also to an increase of consummer goods demand, as more workers means more monthly wages to be spend.
The response of the rich circles was swift, and could evade the examination of an untrained observer, first the bankers have lowered the interest rates, encouraging the working population to take small loans for new furniture, even for new clothes. After few weeks, the consummer goods prices were increased, so the workers started having difficulties paying the rates.

The Prime Minister Portela, who was also the interimar Security Minister, decided that the informations services of the republic were completly inadecvated, if they were at all. He named Lt. General Juan Hernandez Sarabia as the Head of Intelligence, in charge with both the internal and external informations services. A quick analize of the situation show him that the republic was swarming with foreign spies and the spanish spies abroad were just few, insufficient for efficient data collecting.
The Counter-Informations Department was created, directly subordonated to the Head of Intelligence. Establishing the first level of domestic intelligence network was expensive however, as recruiting the agents, train them, and providing the infrastructure cost around 25 million, but the state treasury was rich enough for this.

Considering the huge number of anarchist movement members in Barcelona, General Miaja devised a plan to get on their good side. As the CNT-FAI opposed alliances with political organizations, he introduced an annex to the Military Regulations, which stated that the syndicalist activity can be asimilated to military service. Using this provisioning he granted the rank of Lt. General to three propaganda leaders of CNT-FAI, Ascaso Abadia, Buenaventura Durruti and Juan Garcia Oliver.

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Next step was to grant Buenaventura Durruti command of the 1th mountain specialized division, and send him to Bilbao in a mission of political propaganda among the basque worker and peasants, as most of them had suffered during the Asturias Revolt of '34.

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As the February '36 Elections were close, a fierce electoral campaign started, the right wing trying to win the population to their site. The left wing parties and syndicates fighted also.

Left
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vs. Right
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Chapter 2. Light and Darkness

2.0. The Sunshine

Finally the elections day has come. Both side hope for victory, as the pools indicate a 50-50 vote intention.
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As the president Niceto had retired from the elections, the candidate of the Popular Front was Manuel Azana, who have served few years ago as prime-minister. Presence at the vote was almost 96%, a record.

Surprisingly, the election results were:
Popular Front - 79%
Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right - 18%
Center - 3%

The former president Niceto-Alcala gave a farewell speech, expressing his sorrow that he didn't performed better in the service of his nation, leaving her with so many unsolved problems. He just hope that his succesor will be able to repair this.
New president Manuel Azana took the solemn pledge and nominate also the new Prime-Minister, Francisco Largo Caballero

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Popular joy was visible anywere on the streets, while in the dark the conservatives were planning for revenge.

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The industry tycoons, backed up by the landlords, decided to lanch a press campaign, pretending that the socialist are discriminating the national minorities, basque, catalonian, and especially the gitanes. In reality, it was the falangistes who organized some action against some poor villages, dressed up as syndicalist militiamen.

Due to the previous propaganda campaign of Durutti, the basque region didn't react to the provocation. Nonetheless, population opinion was influenced in some traditional conservative fiefs, like Seville, Valadolid and Saragoza. This lead to an increase of disident activities, and lot of right-wing simpatizant workers quit their jobs in the factories, at least 236,000, industrial production decreasing accordingly.
 
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