El Caudillo

Down in Rochester this spring, I discovered a nice secondhand bookshop and there found something I had been passively pursuing for some years - a biography of Francisco Franco Bahamond, better known to us as General Franco. To some, he was the fascist dictator who, with Hitler's and Mussolini’s help, claimed victory in the bloody Spanish civil war and reigned as bloody tyrant from 1938-1975, scandalously surviving the War’s triumph of democracy and destruction of the Far Right. To others, including Brian Crozier in this 1967 biography, he was not a fascist, but an authoritarian ultraconservative who had no ideology other than a hatred of communism and a love of order. Crozier claimed himself to be naturally left of centre, but argued that Franco was no more violent and oppressive than the republicans against whom he fought. His neutrality during the Second World War was certainly of great assistance to the United Kingdom; Hitler claimed that he would rather have two or three teeth pulled out than have another meeting to persuade Franco to join his war.

Curiously, Franco was a natural monarchist and fought the Republic which had unseated King Alphonso. Yet once in control, he quietly opposed the return of a king, even though two monarchist groups (the 'Carlists' and those in favour of Alphonso) had helped bring him to power. In July, 1947, Franco proclaimed Spain a monarchy, but failed to nominate a monarch. He left the throne vacant, making himself regent, though Spain’s kingship was willed to Juan Carlos de Borbón upon the Generalissimo’s death.

Franco is a bag of contradictions, with both his supporters' sycophancy and his detractors’ kneejerk dismissal of anything ‘fascist’ proving equally misleading. His innate monarchism but refusal to surrender the throne seems to make him symbolic of the entire human race. We want someone greater than us to worship, yet we manufacture idols; we desire order and righteousness, yet refuse submission to the Creator and His good laws. We were designed to be spiritual monarchists at heart, but we became godless republicans in practice. Heaven is a Kingdom, and only those who yield to its King will enter in.

Yea, all kings shall worship him: all nations shall serve him. Psalm 72:11, Geneva Bible

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