The Escape of Juan Negrín

On 5 March 1939, Col. Segismundo Casado started his coup against the government of the Republic headed by Juan Negrín. A few days earlier, on 25 February, Negrín had decided to leave Madrid for a secret destination from which to continue the desperate Republican resistance. That same day, France recognized the Francoist regime as the new legal government of Spain. The United Kingdom followed two days later.

By then, Negrín had lost the support of almost all the pro-Republican political forces, which were in complete disarray since the fall of Catalonia in January. His main support came from the Communist Party of Spain (PCE). The place Negrín chose, given the code name “Yuste Position”, was near Petrel in the province of Alicante. It was not far from the “Dakar Position”, near Elda, where the PCE leadership established itself.

The decision to go to such remote locations, far from the cities still controlled by the Republic, has been much debated. The most widely accepted explanation is that it was part of a staged Republican retreat to the coast, which would allow the largest possible number of people under threat of Francoist repression to escape.

The success of the Casado coup precipitated events. Fearing arrest, or worse, by the rebel Republican troops that were advancing to the coast, on 6 March Negrín and the Communist leaders decided to escape by plane from the Monóvar airfield. As the map illustrates, Negrín and his collaborators, including Foreign Minister Julio Alvarez del Vayo, Agriculture Minister Vicente Uribe, and General Juan Modesto, flew to Toulouse in two Douglas DC-2s belonging to the Spanish Postal Airlines, while Communist leaders, including Dolores Ibarruri, Jesúa Monzón, and cultural figures such as writer Rafael Alberti and his wife María Teresa León, flew to Orán in Algeria on two DeHavilland DH 89s Dragon Rapide.