The Pact of Santoña
Item Details
Exhibit: The Civil War in the Basque Country
Repository: Sabino Arana Fundazio, Bilbao, Spain
Source:
Date Created: 1937-08-26
Type: Photograph
Extent: 1 item
43.44497, -3.45593
Repository: Sabino Arana Fundazio, Bilbao, Spain
Source:
Source: Sabino Arana Fundazioa/Fundación Sabino Arana: AJP-004/125
Date Created: 1937-08-26
Type: Photograph
Extent: 1 item
43.44497, -3.45593
The photo shows soldiers of the Basque army in the port of Santoña on 26 August 1937, just before their surrender to the Italian army under the terms of the Pact of Santoña.
Following the fall of Bilbao to the Francoists on 19 June 1937, the Basque army withdrew to Cantabria. In this context, leaders of the PNV negotiated a separate peace with Franco’s Italian ally. Juan de Ajuriaguerra, assisted by Father Alberto Onaindia, led the Basque negotiators. Under the terms agreed to with the Italian commanders in mid-August, the Basque units would give themselves up in the area of Laredo and Santoña before August 24 in a simulation of a military defeat. In exchange, the Italians promised to treat the Basques as prisoners of war under the protection of their government, guaranteeing their lives and protecting them from having to serve in Franco’s army. In addition, the Basque arrmy’s military and political leadership would be allowed to escape in ships chartered by the Basque government. Some fifteen battalions, most composed of Basque nationalists but with some leftists, comprising more than 10,000 soldiers, surrendered on 26 August 26.
The Pact of Santoña resulted in a total failure for the Basque nationalists. On the one hand, their leaders were unable to arrange either the surrender of the military units or the evacuation of the civilians in the agreed to time period, which left the Italians free of any responsibility to uphold the terms of the agreement. On the other, Franco refused to accept the terms that the Basques and Italians had negotiated. The Basque soldiers and political leaders were initially held in the prison of Dueso in Santoña under the control of the Italian military, but a few days later, Franco demanded that they be handed over to him. This was done on 4 September. The summary trials with their death sentences began soon after and, on 15 October 1937, so did the executions. Juan Ajuriaguerra, the Basque nationalist who had negotiated the Pact of Santoña was also captured and convicted, although the death sentence was eventually commuted.
FMR / UB / MJV