How the Spanish Civil War Ended

The end of the Spanish Civil War is marked by a series of Francoist military victories and international recognition of the rebel regime. It is a process that begins with the end of the Battle of the Ebro and accelerates with the Catalonia offensive. But it is also the result of a wide-ranging Francoist military intelligence operation, overlooked until now, which was decisive in determining how the Civil War came to an end.

To understand this process, it is essential focus on the role of Franco’s intelligence service, the Military Information and Police Service (SIPM), led by Colonel José Ungría, who appears second from the left in the photo. Based on the model of the German security police, from the second half of 1937 onward the SIPM reoriented its strategy toward controlling territory and the enemy’s major population centers. During 1938, it also succeeded in bringing the entire Republican intelligence service under its control.

After the loss of Barcelona, the head of the Republican General Staff, Vicente Rojo, presented President Azaña and Prime Minister Negrín with a plan for surrender and an immediate cessation of hostilities. Before leaving for France Negrín rejected it and reshaped the Republican high command, but in doing so he unwittingly promoted the entire professional military leadership that had long been working for the Burgos General Headquarters.

On 2 February 2, 1939 the last Republican Cortes held in Figueras, approved three points for surrender. Four days later, the Burgos General Headquarters sent its document, “Instructions for Surrender”, the surrender instructions to Madrid. From that moment on, the Republican professional high command effectively handed itself over, providing all the defensive information and cartography that the Francoist General Staff had been lacking.

The surrender now accelerated. On the very day the Catalonia offensive began, the SIPM created a political front—the Advisory Council—intended to negotiate the handover of the capital and the Levantine ports with a disunited Popular Front, most of which was in favor of immediate surrender. The Advisory Council had freedom of movement and enjoyed diplomatic cover, as it was established in the British embassy and met under the French flag. On 16 February, the British (who had secretly recognized the Burgos government the day before) offered a conditional peace to representatives of both Republicans and Francoists. Negrín accepted it, but his response was intercepted by Francoist intelligence services, and as a result it arrived too late to have any effect. 

The outcome of the conflict was marked by the high degree of precision with which the Francoists organized the surrender and determined the fate of the defeated. At the moment of the Republican collapse, its territory was home to ten million people, major urban centers, ports and naval bases, as well as half a million soldiers who were not recognized as combatants. For them, there was no armistice and no amnesty. Most were imprisoned or subjected to forced labor. None of the conditions or promises the Francoists had made to secure the Republican surrender were respected.

GGB