The Diplomat in Spain

Eduardo González

On April 14, 1931, 93 years ago today, the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. The new regime was immediately recognized by Uruguay and Mexico, but the real international backing came from France, whose decision to legitimize the new Republic inspired numerous countries, including two initially cautious powers such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

The new regime was proclaimed two days after the municipal elections gave victory to the coalition of Republicans and Socialists in 41 of the 50 provincial capitals and King Alfonso XIII, whose figure had been badly damaged by seven years of dictatorship, announced his decision to leave Spain amid widespread demonstrations throughout the country against the Monarchy.

Internationally, the Second Republic was almost immediately recognized by two Latin American countries, Uruguay and Mexico, which did so as early as April 16. However, for the new regime to receive true international legitimacy it needed the support of a country with real weight, and that country was France.

As an excellent study by Luis V. Pérez Gil reports, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been punctually informed by its Embassy in Madrid about the events in Spain in the run-up to the proclamation of the Republic. The issue was thoroughly discussed at the Quai d’Orsay on April 15, one day after the change of regime, and on April 17, only two days later, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aristide Briand, officially announced that “the Government of the Republic has decided to recognize the new Spanish Government”, which was communicated that same day by Ambassador Charles Corbin to the provisional Government of the Republic.

France’s decision helped other countries to overcome their initial reluctance and for Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Poland, Turkey, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, China and almost all the Latin American countries to do the same in the days that followed.

For its part, the United Kingdom -whose main fear was that the events in Spain would alter the European political balance- opted from the outset to be cautious about the news coming from “this mysterious country” in which “where one least thinks, the hare jumps” (in the words of the ambassador in Madrid, George Grahame), and remained faithful to its usual doctrine of recognizing only those regimes that had demonstrated their capacity to consolidate and control the internal situation. However, according to the aforementioned study by Pérez Gil, the French position accelerated events and ended up also influencing the United Kingdom, whose first immediate objective was to remove the new Republic from the excessive influence of Paris. London finally recognized the Spanish Republic on April 22, one day after Ambassador Grahame sent a very reassuring report on the internal situation in Spain.

USA and Vatican

As far as the United States was concerned, according to a magnificent work by Aurora Bosch, the main concern was the possible revolutionary drifts of the new Spanish regime, as evidenced by the report sent to Washington on April 14 by the American ambassador in Madrid, Irwin Laughlin, in which he advised his government not to recognize the Republic for the time being until its possible communist influences could be ruled out.

The ambassador was not too reassured by the words of the Spanish Republican leaders themselves, who had personally assured him that the new Republic would be “non-communist, civil, political, national and democratic”, and, instead, he was much more concerned about some reports in the Soviet press comparing the Spanish events with the Russian Revolution and claiming that Moscow had sent volunteers to Spain to proclaim the Second Republic. Finally, the information coming from Western Europe and Latin America, and even the recommendations of the president of the ITT, Hernand Behn, reassured Laughlin and the American government, which recognized the Spanish Republic on April 22, 1931, the same day as the United Kingdom.

That same April 22, the Spanish Republic was recognized by Mussolini’s Italy and by Germany (which had two years left before Adolf Hitler came to power), and on April 24 it obtained the recognition of Japan and Hungary. For its part, the Holy See chose to conform to the general trend and recognized the new Republic in application of the principle of granting legitimacy to the authority that actually controls the territory. This did not prevent that, on May 19, the Vatican Secretary of State communicated to the Spanish Chargé d’Affaires the papal refusal to grant the papal approval to the ambassador proposed by the provisional Government, Luis de Zulueta, because of his “modernist and free-thinking” ideas, which displeased the Catholic members of the provisional Government, especially its president, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora. This was the beginning of complicated relations between the Republic and the Vatican on the thorny issue of Church-State relations.