HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 354

him “the Lion of the Rif.” Sympathetic to
the concept of military strongmen, he sup-
ported the dictatorship of General P RIMO DE
R IVERA . Although not particularly devoted
to the monarchy, he grew increasingly dis-
satisfied with the Second Republic after its
proclamation in 1931. As commander of
such paramilitary forces as the Civil Guard
and the Border Guard, he found many
opportunities to interact with other civilian
and uniformed malcontents. In 1932 he
took the lead in a mutiny that attempted to
overthrow President M ANUEL A ZAÑA . The
rising produced some street fighting in
M ADRID but quickly collapsed. The episode
was already known as “the revolt of Gen-
eral Sanjurjo” when he and fellow conspir-
ators were brought to trial, but although he
was, not surprisingly, sentenced to death,
the government chose to modify the pun-
ishment for the rebels. Sanjurjo's sentence
was reduced to life imprisonment, and he
was released in 1934 with the implication
that he should go abroad.
Established in L ISBON , Sanjurjo devel-
oped a network of conservative sympathiz-
ers extending from the S ALAZAR regime of
Portugal to the Mussolini dictatorship of
Italy. His admirers in Spain saw him as the
natural leader of a new and larger insurrec-
tion. As the planning moved toward the
launching of a grand military revolt in 1936,
Sanjurjo became increasingly impatient
with F RANCISCO F RANCO , a general whom
everyone insisted must be a part of their
uprising. The arrogant Sanjurjo responded
that the revolt would go ahead with or
without “little Franco.” When the Spanish
army rose against the republic in July 1936,
a plane was sent to Lisbon to convey San-
jurjo back home, where he was scheduled
to become the chief of the new regime.

Despite warnings that the small plane was
dangerously overloaded Sanjurjo insisted
upon bringing aboard two large suitcases
filled with splendid uniforms appropriate to
a national leader. The craft crashed during
takeoff, and Sanjurjo was killed. Rumors
spread that he had been murdered by
Republican agents or even jealous rivals,
but the evidence indicates that Sanjurjo
was the victim of his own vanity. Within a
few months Franco would be proclaimed
leader of the “new” Spain, a position he
would hold for nearly 40 years, while San-
jurjo was consigned to historical footnotes.

San Martín, José Francisco de
(1778-1850)
Spanish colonial rebel
Son of a Spanish military officer and colo-
nial administrator, San Martín was born in
the Viceroyalty of L A P LATA (present-day
A RGENTINA ) but spent his early years in the
ancestral homeland. He served as an offi-
cer in Spain's campaigns against the North
African Moors, the British in the changing
alliances of the French revolutionary era,
and the Portuguese in 1801. Returning to
his birthplace, San Martín was caught up
in the Argentine revolutionary movement
that began in 1810. In little more that five
years he and his fellow rebels had effec-
tively overthrown Spanish rule in Buenos
Aires and its adjacent provinces. The out-
lying provinces, however, were in danger
of being attacked and subjugated from the
royalist stronghold in P ERU . San Martín
earned his greatest military laurels by lead-
ing an expedition across the Andes and, in
1817, liberating C HILE , which he then
handed over to the local nationalist com-
mander, B ERNARDO O'H IGGINS . As San