Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco won a civil war with foreign help and ruled Spain for thirty-six years. Born in 1892 in a naval town in Galicia, he was refused the naval academy because entry had been cut after the loss of the fleet in 1898, went into the army instead, and made his career in Morocco — where the Spanish colonial war was fought with a brutality that shaped the officers who fought it. He was shot in the abdomen in 1916, survived against the odds, and became the youngest general in Europe. He commanded the Foreign Legion, and in 1934 was brought to the mainland to suppress the Asturian miners' rising, which he did with Moroccan troops and some 2,000 dead. He was cautious about the conspiracy of 1936 and joined it late, and the deaths of the other leading generals within weeks left him in charge of the best troops in the Spanish army. He was made head of state by the rebel generals in September 1936 and never gave the position up. His conduct of the war was deliberately slow — he diverted to relieve the Alcázar at Toledo for the symbolism, and preferred grinding advances that allowed thorough political cleansing behind the lines. The repression after 1939 killed tens of thousands more and imprisoned hundreds of thousands. He kept Spain out of the Second World War while sending a division to Russia, was isolated and then rehabilitated by the Cold War, and named a Bourbon prince as his successor. He died in 1975, and Spain became a democracy within three years.
- Lived: 1892 CE – 1975 CE
- Nationality: Spanish
- Roles: general, dictator, head_of_state
