Carabanchel incident

The Carabanchel incident refers to the events that occurred on June 27, 1932 in the Carabanchel camp, where students from the military academies were at the time to carry out a joint exercise, which was joined by the three Infantry Regiments garrisoned in Madrid. It took place during the first two years of the Second Spanish Republic.

Facts

Manuel Azaña, then Minister of War, dismissed the generals involved.

Without the knowledge of the Minister of War, Manuel Azaña, three infantry regiments from the Madrid garrison were formally transferred to Carabanchel to fraternize with the cadets by order of General Villegas, head of the I Organic Division. After the parade, speeches were made by Generals Caballero, Villegas, and Goded. These speeches were critical of Manuel Azaña's military reform and of the draft Statute for Catalonia that was being debated in the Cortes at that time.

General Caballero, head of the Infantry Brigade, referred to the "difficult moment" the Army was going through and that the Catalan Statute endangered the integrity of the Homeland. For his part, General Villegas, more Moderate in his criticism of the government's military and autonomist policy, he ended his speech with a "Long live Spain!" and not with the obligatory "Long live the Republic!". Finally, the Army Chief of Staff, General Goded intervened —who was not supposed to speak in principle, since he was there as a special and unofficial guest— who He ended his speech with the phrase: «Long live Spain! And nothing else", omitting again the mandatory "Long live the Republic!", for which he harshly reproached him. Mangada replied, although the colonel in charge of the 1st Infantry Regiment, Carlos Leret Úbeda, managed to bring order and take Mangada away; things got worse when General Villegas ordered the arrest of Mangada and he, exalted, took off his jacket and cap and threw them to the ground, while exclaiming "Look how they treat one of your bosses."

In the opinion of Colonel Carlos Leret Úbeda, this action of gathering the troops from the academies, with parades or speeches with an anti-republican tone, was part of a premeditated plan to create discontent in the military, since it was not the first time that was produced. Two days before, General Millán Astray had appeared at the Carabanchel Shooting School, asked for a horse and had him honored.

Mangada, although he was prosecuted for these events, was acquitted. The investigations carried out made it possible to uncover the commitments of various military commanders with conspiratorial movements against the Republic that would culminate in the so-called Sanjurjada on August 10 of that same year.

The incident resulted in the dismissal of Goded, Villegas and Caballero by Azaña, despite the not very good opinion that the then Minister of War had of the character of Lieutenant Colonel Mangada and that the Azaña himself did not qualify the facts as a crime or act of indiscipline but as a simple "lack", "indiscretion" or "clumsiness". There is also the version, defended by Goded himself, that in his case it was he himself who He submitted his resignation, to share the fate of his two colleagues.

The three vacant posts were filled by Generals Carlos Masquelet, Virgilio Cabanellas Ferrer and Manuel Romerales Quintero.