Miguel Cabanellas

Miguel Cabanellas Ferrer (Cartagena, January 1, 1872-Málaga, May 14, 1938) was a general of the Spanish Army and one of the leaders of the coup d'état that led to the Spanish Civil War.

Biography

Beginnings

Miguel Manuel Virgilio Joaquín Cabanellas Ferrer was the son of Virgilio Cabanellas Tapia, at that time a captain in the marine infantry, and Clara Ferrer Rittwagen. One of his brothers, Virgilio, would also pursue a military career and become a division general.. He completed his high school education as a boarder at the Pious Schools of Yecla, along with his brothers Virgilio and Ángel, where he coincided with & # 34; Azorín & # 34;. Later he entered the General Military Academy of Toledo. He entered the army in the cavalry arm in 1889. He married on May 24, 1894 and a few days later he left for Cuba.

Performance in Cuba

He received his baptism of fire as a second lieutenant of cavalry on November 2, 1894. On August 23, 1895, now a first lieutenant, he engaged in combat with troops under his command in the San Serapio Savannah, receiving for his performance the Medal of Military Merit first class. On December 1, 1896 he participated again in a combat at Tumba del Tesoro, for which he was again decorated. He survives after contracting the so-called black vomit (yellow fever) and on October 1, 1897 he is promoted to captain.

Action in the Spanish protectorate of Morocco

Destined to serve in the Protectorate of Morocco, he intervened in the conquest of Ait-Aixa, for which he was promoted to commander on July 1, 1909 and received a Cross with red insignia of Military Merit and a María Cristinafirst class. In 1910 he proposed the creation of a corps of Rif volunteers, the first units of regulars (Moroccan troops within the Spanish Army). These first units participated successfully in the defense of Melilla and Larache.

On May 15, 1911, an operation by the Spanish army began in the Llanos de Garet in which, together with troops of that nationality, three squadrons of regulars took part under the command of Cabanellas, who obtained promotion as a result of his actions. to the higher grade.

In the months of July and August 1921, the Spanish troops suffered successive defeats in the Rif and were forced to evacuate positions with serious losses, causing the so-called Annual Disaster. The advance of the Moors in Monte Arruit raises fears that they could take over Melilla, causing many of its inhabitants to flee. In September, a Spanish offensive begins in which Cabanellas participates in command of one of the columns, which continues until the month of December and during which Arruit and Zeluán are reconquered.

The serious shortcomings of the Spanish army in Morocco cause many of its officers (Cabanellas, Francisco Franco, José Millán Astray and Emilio Mola among them) to strongly criticize the Defense Boards, which were organizations made up of officers who had a decisive intervention in the leadership of the armed forces, which causes the now Brigadier General Cabanellas to be prosecuted and an attempt is made to relieve him of command.

Indeed, on November 18, 1921, a summary instruction for accusations and injuries aggravated by their advertising was opened, due to a letter published by the newspapers, in which he said that “the presidents of the Defense Boards, They were the first responsible for the horrendous catastrophe that occurred in Melilla, for occupying only in community members, for discrediting the command and assaulting the budget, without dealing with the material and for not increasing the effectiveness of the units »

In January 1922 a decree of the Government limits the functions of the joints to an informative character and in November they are not only dissolved but also the military associations are prohibited for the future.

Cabanellas remains in Africa until May 13, 1922, when he returns to peninsular Spain.

The Rivera Primo dictatorship

At the end of May 1924, he is promoted to Division General and a month later is sent to Menorca as military governor. His liberal and republican ideology led him to face the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. As a consequence of this confrontation, on July 26, 1926, he was deposed from that position, passing to the reservation.

Miguel Cabanellas dedicated himself to encouraging any conspiracy directed against the dictatorship and in particular joined the failed plot headed by José Sánchez Guerra in 1929 for which he was detained for a few days.

While conspired against the monarchy with General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano and Commander Ramón Franco, on December 12, 1930, the Jaca uprising exploded in which two of his children participate. The revolt fails and their leaders, the Captains Fermín Galán and Ángel García Hernández are shot.

The Second Republic

On April 14, 1931, the Republic was proclaimed and due to its support for the Republican cause, on April 17, 1931 the provisional government appoints Cabanellas Captain General of the II Military Region (Andalusia), where immediately declares the state of war because of the disorders that were happening, a measure that will repeat on May 12 of the same year. Subsequently, he was appointed Army Chief in Morocco and in 1932 he replaced José Sanjurjo as general director of the Civil Guard, a position on August 15, 1932.

During the radical-caedist biennium (1933-1936), with a conservative government, he was elected deputy to Cortes in Jaén for the Radical Republican Party of Alejandro Lerroux. There he is appointed president of the War Commission, but resigned following his appointment as inspector General of Carabineros, in which his republican ideas and his affiliation to Freemasonry influenced. Subsequently, it goes to the position of Inspector General of the Civil Guard and then to the head of the V Organic Division (Zaragoza).

coup d'etat of 1936 and Civil War

There are contradictory opinions regarding the participation of Cabanellas, which was still commanded by the V Organic Division, in the conspiracy that culminated with the coup d'etat of July 17, 1936 against the Government of the Republic, called by The subsequent Francoist propaganda national uprising .

Some argue that he adhered to the survey as soon as he started, while others claim that he had prior participation in his preparation. According to the latter, General Queipo de Llano, who participated in the conspiracy together with General Mola and others Officers, sent Lieutenant Colonel of Engineers Rafael Fernández to require him to collaborate in her. As the response was affirmative, a meeting was then agreed with General Mola that took place on June 7, 1936 in Murillo de las Limas; In the Mola project he appeared as the future Minister of War.

At the beginning of the uprising, he ordered the deployment of troops in strategic places of Zaragoza and the arrest of 360 leaders of the Popular Front parties, including the civil governor, as well as the general government envoy of General Miguel Núñez de Prado. He issued a side declaring the state of war and ratifying his republican ideas.

The conspirators had foreseen that to direct the movement a military directory chaired by General José Sanjurjo would be constituted, but he dies on July 20, 1936 in an aviation accident, so they agree to form the National Defense Board, that it would be the supreme organ of the rebels, by the minutes of July 24, 1936, in which it is also designated as its president to Cabanellas that at that time was the oldest general of division among the rebels. This presidency had an almost symbolic character with little real power and, in fact, the appointment separated him from the effective troops.

Two weeks later he signed a decree by which the tricolor flag (red, yellow and purple) established by the Second Spanish Republic was replaced by the bicolor (red and yellow) that was introduced in Spain by Carlos III.

On September 21, 1936, a meeting was held in Salamanca in which the Board had to deal with a single military command to avoid friction such as those produced in the two months elapsed, which was approved with the opposition of Cabanellas. The designation was then voted and Francisco Franco (who had been at his orders in Africa) as general, manifesting Cabanellas, who refrained from voting, given his position contrary to the measure: "You do not know what you have done" - The general told his colleagues who enthroned Franco as a supreme military command - "because they do not know him as me, that I had it at my orders in the Army of Africa, as head of one of the units of the column under my command... If you give Spain, you will believe that it is yours and you will not let anyone replace it in the war or after it, until your death.

Some authors speculate that he had no command of troops for his belonging to Freemasonry; However, others argue that with this, Franco wanted the requisition of all your documents.

Death

On May 12, 1938, it is published in the press that General Cabanellas is seriously ill. The general, who was spending a few days in Malaga with the Marquises of Larios, suffered a cerebral congestion.

Guillermo Cabanellas

One of his children, Guillermo Cabanellas, had participated in the Jaca uprising and in the popular movements that had led a few years earlier to the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic. In 1936 he was a candidate for deputy for the Spanish Socialist Party. When the National Defense Board was established in July 1936 and his father, General Cabanellas assumed his presidency, this did not prevent persecutions and threats of supporters from the rebels against their son, which was aggravated by assuming Francisco Franco the Headquarters of the Headquarters of the State. Seeing his life, Guillermo Cabanellas escaped with his wife to France in early 1937 and from there they traveled first to Uruguay, then to Paraguay and later to the Argentine Republic, where they set their residence. During their exile, Guillermo Cabanellas, In addition to doing intense work as a teacher, lawyer and editor, he wrote two books on the Spanish Civil War: The War of the Thousand Days , in two volumes and four generals .

posthumous imputation for alleged crimes

In 2008, he was one of the thirty -five high positions of Franco charged by the National Court in the summary instructed by Baltasar Garzón for the alleged crimes of illegal detention and crimes against humanity that would have been committed during the Spanish Civil War and the first years of Franco's regime. The judge declared the alleged criminal responsibility of Cabanellas extinguished when he received a reliable record of his death, which has been seventy years before. The instruction of the case was controversial and Garzón became accused of prevarication, court and acquitted by the Supreme Court, However, he declared that the instruction of the cause against the deceased high positions of Franco had been a mistake.