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and welcome to the history page. After hearing the moving personal testimony of
Rafael Sainz last week, we shall resume our narrative where we left off, with
the splintered and rather ineffectual five-week period of Republican rule. Readers
will recall from our instalment two weeks ago that the combined militias of Bayo
and Uribarry initiated their occupation with a rampage of the island’s rural
churches and the targeted killings of twenty-one local clergymen. Given the traditional
Ibicenco reverence towards all things religious, it was only natural that these
deeds did not generate a high degree of solidarity between the islanders and their
new warlords. Consequently, the latter’s attempts at restructuring local
economy and political life met with apathy at best and a stony wall of resistance
in the majority of cases. Also in operation in these early
days of Republican occupation was a bitter power struggle between Bayo and Uribarry
as to which of the two men would assume maximum leadership in the aftermath of
invasion. Bayo condemned the undisciplined methods and indiscriminate sackings
that characterized Uribarry’s motley recruits and made it clear that he would
not allow such practices to continue. Unwilling to play second fiddle to Bayo’s
military superiority, Uribarry and his troops withdrew from Ibiza on 10th August
to return to their home turf of Valencia. This inauspicious
beginning to Republican rule quickly degenerated into a near total breakdown of
Ibicenco society and Bayo’s eventual departure from the island as well. The
fatal blow to his tenuous supremacy in the Mediterranean theatre of war occurred
on 3rd September when his efforts to incorporate Majorca into the Republican domain
ended in failure. As the Ibicenco commentator, Artur Parron, writes in his candid
chronicle of the Civil War in the Pitiuses, “… the authority of [the
anti-fascist] Committee in Ibiza was seriously undermined by Bayo’s defeat
on the larger island; it became incapable of enforcing the economic and labour
measures it had instituted, and, above all, of maintaining public order. …
The disorganization and indiscipline of the troops fuelled the precariousness
of public order and led to indiscriminate repression.” Interestingly, Parron
goes on to qualify that, “One must not think that these abuses were committed
only by the troops that disembarked on 8th August. The new situation proved fertile
ground for the waging of personal reprisals on questions of debts and property
rights among the very islanders themselves.” The brutal honesty of Parron’s
observations can only leave one aghast at the hidden seeds of ruination that lie
buried within the deepest layers of any society and which often germinate in times
of war. Anarchy Arrives The
events following Bayo’s withdrawal are as convoluted and imbrued as one would
expect from a war-torn territory where collective hysteria had become the driving
force behind human behaviour. Following Bayo’s departure on the 3rd - 4th
September and the ensuing dissolution of the anti-fascist Committee, the lawless
islands were again reoccupied on 9th - 10th September by a large militia of anarchists
under the leadership of Juan Yagüe. The vacuum of power in Ibiza allowed
Yagüe and his 500-strong contingent to seize control of the island’s
infrastructure without the slightest hint of opposition. One of their first moves
was the take-over of the local newspaper, the Diario de Ibiza, which they
renamed Worker Solidarity, intending to use it as a propaganda tool for their
labour union, CNT. Less than 24 hours later, however, the plot twists yet again,
forcing the anarchists to withdraw as suddenly as they had arrived, but not without
first inflicting a savage blow to Pitiusan society… Meanwhile
in Majorca, the newly dominant Nationals began a full-scale campaign to bring
the Pitiuses back into the fold and began with a light bombing of Vila on 12th
September. Although this preliminary action did not cause any casualties, it did
serve to spread panic among an already terrified population. On the following
noon, 13th September, three Italian aircraft delivered a second round of more
intensive bombing, this time killing an estimated forty victims and causing severe
material damages. This action in Ibiza was but a foretaste of the Italian military
prepotency which, operating from a solid base in the Mediterranean, would later
be rained on Barcelona and the eastern Spanish seaboard. Well-known is the fact
that Mussolini’s generous aid to Franco constitutes one of the decisive factors
in the latter’s victory. September Massacre Returning
to Ibiza: with the Republican forces now completely disintegrated, isolated pockets
of anarchist militias visited their wrath on the prison in Dalt Vila, machine-gunning
the entire body of political captives housed therein. Of roughly one hundred inmates
- including priests, military men, rightwing political leaders, the manufacturer
Marí Mayans and the banker Abel Matutes i Torres - ninety-three were killed.
That night numerous families escaped to Valencia, Algeria and Majorca, informing
the National leaders in the Balearic capital of the utter social decomposition
in the Pitiuses. It was not until 18th September, however - five days later -
that the Italian destroyer, Malocello, made a reconnaissance tour to Ibiza to
assess the situation, returning the same day to Palma. Upon receiving the report
that the island was indeed a political no-man’s land, several well-organized
companies of Falangists and assorted National factions arrived in the Pitiuses
on 20th September, occupying both Ibiza and Formentera and initiating a bloody
counter-repression that would long outlast the period of wartime proper. Closing On
that depressing note we will end our sad chronicle for this week. Most of us,
I am willing to wager, haven’t the heart to listen to anymore of the madness
that took place during the tragic summer of 1936. For those who can pluck up their
courage, we will be back next week to discuss the period of National occupation
and the important role of the Falangists in the wartime military state. Until
then.
Emily Kaufman
emilykaufman@ibizahistoryculture.com
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