José Sanjurjo: Difference between revisions

José Sanjurjo
José Sanjurjo
	Sanjurjo c. 1928–1932
Nickname(s)	"El León del Rif"; (The Lion of the Rif)
Born	28 March 1872; Pamplona, Navarra, Spain
Died	20 July 1936 (aged 64); Cascais, Portugal
Buried	Panteón de Regulares número 2, Cementerio Municipal de la Purísima Concepción, Melilla, Spain 35°18′02″N 2°56′21″W / 35.300667°N 2.939141°W
Allegiance	Kingdom of Spain (1896–1931); Spanish Republic (1931–1936); Nationalist Spain (1936);
Service / branch	Spanish Army
Years of service	1896–1932
Rank	Lieutenant General
Battles / wars	Cuban War of Independence; Spanish–American War; Rif War (1909); Rif War (1920); Spanish Civil War
Awards	Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand; Order of Charles III

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José Sanjurjo y Sacanell (Spanish: [saŋˈxuɾxo]; 28 March 1872 – 20 July 1936) was a Spanish military officer who was one of the military leaders who plotted the July 1936 coup d'état that started the Spanish Civil War.

He was endowed the nobiliary title of "Marquis of the Rif" in 1927.^[1]

A monarchist opponent of the Second Spanish Republic proclaimed in 1931, he led a coup d'état known as la Sanjurjada in August 1932. The authorities easily suppressed the coup and initially condemned Sanjurjo to death, then later commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. The government of Alejandro Lerroux – formed after the 1933 general election – eventually amnestied him in 1934.^[2]

He took part, from his self-exile in Portugal, in the military plot for the 1936 coup d'état. Following the coup, Sanjurjo, expected by some to become the commander-in-chief of the Nationalist faction, died in an air crash on the third day of the war, when travelling back to Spain. He had chosen to fly in a small, overloaded plane, because the pilot was a friend of his. Sabotage was suspected,^[3] but never proven.

Early life

Sanjurjo was born in Pamplona. His father, Captain Justo Sanjurjo Bonrostra, was a Carlist. His mother was Carlota Sacanell Desojo.

Military career

Early career

He served in Cuba in 1896, in the Rif War (1909) in Morocco, and in the Rif War (1920), including the regaining of the territory in Melilla lost after the Battle of Annual in 1921. In 1922, he was assigned to investigate corruption in the army command of Larache. He was High Commissioner of Spain in Morocco and reached the rank of lieutenant general. In 1925 he participated in the amphibious landing at Alhucemas. With the completion of the 1920 Rif War, King Alfonso XIII awarded him the Gran Cruz de Carlos III on 28 March 1931. In 1928 he was made chief of a main directorate of the Civil Guard.

During the Second Republic

In 1923, Miguel Primo de Rivera came to power in a military coup, ruling Spain as dictator.^[4] Gradually, Primo de Rivera's support faded,^[5] and he resigned in January 1930.^[6] General Dámaso Berenguer was ordered by the king to form a replacement government,^[7] which annoyed Sanjurjo, who considered himself far better qualified.^[8] Berenguer's dictablanda dictatorship failed to provide a viable alternative to Primo de Rivera.^[7] In the municipal elections of 12 April 1931, little support was shown for pro-monarchy parties in the major cities, and large numbers of people gathered in the streets of Madrid.^[9] Asked if the government could count on the support of Sanjurjo's Civil Guard, he rejected the suggestion.^[10] King Alfonso XIII abdicated,^[9] and the Second Spanish Republic was formed.^[7]

Despite Manuel Azaña's military reforms of 1931, Sanjurjo retained his post as the commander of the Civil Guard; under his command they continued to use their traditionally brutal tactics such as the "ley de fugas", the excuse of shooting prisoners and later claiming that they were attempting to escape during an incident of unrest in Seville.^[11]

Sanjurjo became one of the first generals appointed to the command of the Spanish Republican Army. His sympathies, however, remained with the monarchist cause.^[12] When he clashed with Prime Minister Manuel Azaña over the military reforms, he was replaced by General Miguel Cabanellas. He was demoted to chief of the customs officers in 1932 as a result of the events of Castilblanco and Arnedo involving the Civil Guard. His confrontation with the ministry, Azaña's military reforms, and the grants of regional autonomy to Catalonia and the Basque Country, led Sanjurjo to plot a rebellion with some Carlists under Manuel Fal Conde, Tomás Domínguez Arévalo, and other military officers. This rebellion, which was known as the Sanjurjada, was proclaimed in Seville on 10 August 1932.^[13] Sanjurjo asserted that the rebellion was only against the current ministry and not against the Republic. It achieved initial success in Seville but absolute failure in Madrid. Sanjurjo attempted to flee to Portugal, but in Huelva he decided to give himself up.

He was condemned to death, a sentence which was later commuted to life imprisonment in the penitentiary of the Dueso. In March 1934 he was granted amnesty by the Lerroux government and went into exile in Estoril, Portugal.

Coup

Between March and June 1936 Sanjurjo negotiated his leadership of a would-be Carlist-only rising against the Republic. When Niceto Alcalá-Zamora was replaced as President of the Republic by Azaña on 10 May 1936, Sanjurjo joined with Generals Emilio Mola, Francisco Franco and Gonzalo Queipo de Llano in a plot to overthrow the republican government. This led to the Nationalist uprising on 17 July 1936, which started the Spanish Civil War.

Determined to annihilate the Spanish Republic, when he was asked to become the leader of the rebellion by envoy Luis Bolín on 12 July 1936, Sanjurjo declared:

... to make political parties disappear, to sweep from the national spheres every liberal structure and to destroy their system.^[14]

Death

On 20 July 1936, Sanjurjo was killed in Estoril in a plane crash, when he tried to fly back to Spain. He chose to fly in a small aircraft (The De Havilland DH.80)^[15] piloted by Juan Antonio Ansaldo. One of the main reasons for the crash was the heavy luggage that Sanjurjo insisted on bringing. Ansaldo had warned him that the load was too heavy, but Sanjurjo answered back:

"I need to wear proper clothes as the new caudillo of Spain."^[16]

Unaccountably, Sanjurjo chose to fly in Ansaldo's plane rather than a much larger and more suitable airplane that was available. The larger plane was an 8-passenger de Havilland Dragon Rapide, the same one which had transported Franco from the Canary Islands to Morocco. Sanjurjo, however, apparently preferred the drama of flying with a "daring aviator" such as Ansaldo (who himself survived the crash).^[17]

When Mola also died in an aircraft accident, Franco was left as the sole effective leader of the Nationalist cause. This led to rumors that Franco had arranged the deaths of his two rivals, but no evidence has ever been produced to support this allegation.^[18]

In 2017 the Historical Memory Law was applied by the authorities of Navarre and required that the Sanjurjo's remains be disinterred, over the objections of surviving family, and reburied in the military section of a municipal cemetery in the Spanish city of Melilla—an enclave on the coast of Morocco where Sanjurjo had once been in command. Further controversy ensued when Sanjurjo was buried with military honors in a military Pantheon of Heroes, as confirmed by the army.^[19] The government of Navarre received assurances from the Ministry of Defense that special "honors were not offered" and that the remains were received as "just one more soldier".^[20]

In fiction

The opening of the alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove, Hitler's War, in his series The War That Came Early, begins with Sanjurjo's flight from Portugal. The point of divergence is that he accepts the pilot's advice and abandons the luggage so the flight is not overloaded and thus arrives safely. His behavior from then on is described as diverging from that of the actual Franco, with Spain taking a less isolated role in World War II and joining the Axis Powers.

José Sanjurjo, the beginnings of the Spanish Civil War, and his ill-fated flight are discussed in José Saramago's book The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis.

References

Citations

^ Gaceta de Madrid núm. 275, p. 26 (1927) (In Spanish)
^ Casanova, Julián (2010) [2007]. The Spanish Republic and Civil War. Translated by Douch, Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-1139490573. Retrieved 27 September 2022. When Lerroux became Prime Minister after the election in November 1933, he organised an amnesty for those involved in the coup [...].
^ de Blaye, Edouard (1976). Franco and the Politics of Spain. Pelican books (revised ed.). Penguin. p. 104. ISBN 978-0140219494. Retrieved 27 September 2022. Sanjurjo, said some, was the victim of sabotage carried out by Republican agents. It was Franco who had bribed the pilot, said others, to rid himself of his most dangerous rival.
^ Thomas (1961). p. 16.
^ Preston (2006). p. 34.
^ Preston (2006). p. 36.
^ ^a ^b ^c Preston (2006). p. 37.
^ Beevor (2006). p. 18.
^ ^a ^b Thomas (1961). pp. 18–19.
^ Beevor (2006). p. 19.
^ Beevor (2006) p. 2
^ Paul Preston. The coming of the Spanish Civil War: reform, reaction, and revolution in the Second Republic. 2nd ed. Routledge, 1994. p. 51.
^ Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. 2001. pp. 95–97
^ Desaparición de los partidos políticos, barrer de las esferas nacionales todo tinglado liberal y destruir su sistema in Juan Eslava Galán, Una Historia de la Guerra Civil que no va a Gustar a Nadie, Ed. Planeta. 2005. ISBN 8408058835 p. 11
^ "Crash of a De Havilland DH.80 in Cascais: 1 killed | Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives". www.baaa-acro.com. Retrieved 2024-09-08.
^ Nicholas Whitlam (2017). Four Weeks One Summer: When It All Went Wrong. Australian Scholarly Publishing. p. 10. ISBN 978-1925333923.
^ Stanley G. Payne, Politics and the Military in Modern Spain, 1967, p. 352
^ Jose Sanjurjo Archived 2007-01-02 at the Wayback Machine at www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
^ histórica, Memoria (21 April 2017). "Defensa entierra con honores al general golpista José Sanjurjo en Melilla". eldiario.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 2018-12-28.
^ "El general Sanjurjo fue enterrado en Melilla como un soldado más". abc (in European Spanish). 2017-04-23. Retrieved 2017-06-04.

Sources

Beevor, Antony (2006). The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-84832-1.
Preston, Paul (2006). The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, and Revenge. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. ISBN 0-393-32987-9.
Thomas, Hugh (1961). The Spanish Civil War (1 ed.). London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. OCLC 395987.

[1] Gaceta de Madrid núm. 275, p. 26 (1927) (In Spanish)

[2] Casanova, Julián (2010) [2007]. The Spanish Republic and Civil War. Translated by Douch, Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-1139490573. Retrieved 27 September 2022. When Lerroux became Prime Minister after the election in November 1933, he organised an amnesty for those involved in the coup [...].

[3] Blaye, Edouard (1976). Franco and the Politics of Spain. Pelican books (revised ed.). Penguin. p. 104. ISBN 978-0140219494. Retrieved 27 September 2022. Sanjurjo, said some, was the victim of sabotage carried out by Republican agents. It was Franco who had bribed the pilot, said others, to rid himself of his most dangerous rival.

[4] Thomas (1961). p. 16.

[5] Preston (2006). p. 34.

[6] Preston (2006). p. 36.

[preston37-7] Preston (2006). p. 37.

[8] Beevor (2006). p. 18.

[thomas18-9] Thomas (1961). pp. 18–19.

[10] Beevor (2006). p. 19.

[11] Beevor (2006) p. 2

[12] Paul Preston. The coming of the Spanish Civil War: reform, reaction, and revolution in the Second Republic. 2nd ed. Routledge, 1994. p. 51.

[13] Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. 2001. pp. 95–97

[14] Desaparición de los partidos políticos, barrer de las esferas nacionales todo tinglado liberal y destruir su sistema in Juan Eslava Galán, Una Historia de la Guerra Civil que no va a Gustar a Nadie, Ed. Planeta. 2005. ISBN 8408058835 p. 11

[15] "Crash of a De Havilland DH.80 in Cascais: 1 killed | Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives". www.baaa-acro.com. Retrieved 2024-09-08.

[16] Nicholas Whitlam (2017). Four Weeks One Summer: When It All Went Wrong. Australian Scholarly Publishing. p. 10. ISBN 978-1925333923.

[17] Stanley G. Payne, Politics and the Military in Modern Spain, 1967, p. 352

[18] Jose Sanjurjo Archived 2007-01-02 at the Wayback Machine at www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk

[19] stórica, Memoria (21 April 2017). "Defensa entierra con honores al general golpista José Sanjurjo en Melilla". eldiario.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 2018-12-28.

[20] "El general Sanjurjo fue enterrado en Melilla como un soldado más". abc (in European Spanish). 2017-04-23. Retrieved 2017-06-04.

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+{{Short description|Spanish military officer and 1936 coup leader (1872–1936)}}
-José Sanjurjo Sacanell ([[Pamplona]], 1872- [[Estoril]], July 20, 1936) Marquess of the Rif and general, was a Spanish Officer who was one of the chief conspirators of the military uprising that led to the [[Spanish Civil War]].
+{{family name hatnote|Sanjurjo|Sacanell|lang=Spanish}}
+{{Infobox military person
+| name          = José Sanjurjo
+| image         = José Sanjurjo Sacanell.jpg
+| image_size    =
+| caption       = Sanjurjo {{circa|1928–1932}}
+| birth_date    = {{Birth date|1872|3|28|df=yes}}
+| death_date    = {{Death date and age|1936|7|20|1872|3|28|df=yes}}
+| birth_place   = [[Pamplona]], [[Navarra]], [[History of Spain (1810–73)|Spain]]
+| death_place   = [[Cascais]], [[Estado Novo (Portugal)|Portugal]]
+| placeofburial = Panteón de Regulares número 2, Cementerio Municipal de la Purísima Concepción, [[Melilla]], Spain
+| placeofburial_coordinates = {{coord|35.300667 |-2.939141}}
+| nickname      = ''"El León del Rif"''<br />(The Lion of the Rif)
+| allegiance    = {{ubl|{{flagdeco|Spain|1874}} [[Restoration (Spain)|Kingdom of Spain]] (1896–1931)|{{flagdeco|Spain|1931}} [[Second Spanish Republic|Spanish Republic]] (1931–1936)|{{flagdeco|Spain|1936}} [[Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War)|Nationalist Spain]] (1936)}}
+| branch        = [[Spanish Army]]
+| serviceyears  = 1896–1932
+| rank          = [[Lieutenant General]]
+| unit          =
+| commands      =
+| battles       = [[Cuban War of Independence]]<br />[[Spanish–American War]]<br />[[Rif War (1909)]]<br />[[Rif War (1920)]]<br />[[Spanish Civil War]]
+| awards        = [[Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand]]<br />[[Order of Charles III]]
+| relations     =
+| laterwork     =
+}}
+'''José Sanjurjo y Sacanell''' ({{IPA|es|saŋˈxuɾxo|lang}}; 28 March 1872 – 20 July 1936) was a [[Spain |Spanish]] military officer who was one of the military leaders who plotted the [[1936 Spanish coup d'etat|July 1936 ''coup d'état'']] that started the [[Spanish Civil War]].
-He served in [[Cuba]] (1896) and in several campaigns in [[Morocco]] (1909), among them the reconquest of the lost territory in Melilla after the disaster of Annual (1921).  In 1922, in the front of the separate military command of Larache, he investigated the cases of corruption in Intendance and armed intervention.  He was High Commissioner of Spain in Morocco.  In 1925 he participated in the disembarkation of Alhucemas.  In 1927 with the completion of the war of the Rif King [[Alfonso XIII]] awarded him on March 28, 1931 the Great Cross of Carlos III.  In 1928 he was chief of a main directorate of the Civil Guard.
+He was endowed the nobiliary title of "Marquis of the Rif" in 1927.<ref>[http://www.boe.es/datos/pdfs/BOE/1927/275/A00026-00026.pdf Gaceta de Madrid núm. 275, p. 26 (1927)] (In Spanish)</ref>
-After the elections of April 1931 he was first that was put before to the orders of the republican Revolutionary Committee even of the proclamation of the Republic, reason why with the influence that he had with his position of chief of a main directorate of the Civil Guard he laid the way to the restoration of the Republic.  He faced [[Manuel Azaña]] over his military policy and was replaced in his position by General [[Miguel Cabanellas]], going transferred he to the Headquarters of the customs officers in 1932 because of the events of Castilblanco and Arnedo, in which nothing had to do. This confrontation with the government along with the autonomy measures and the military reforms of Azaña, led him to join with some carlists of Fal Conde and the conde de Rodezno and other military officers in a revolt in Seville on August 10, 1932.  He achieved initial success in [[Seville]] but absolute failure in Madrid in his revolt known as the sanjurjada.  He clarified that he rose against the government and not against the republican regime.  Against this one revolt it was Azaña that transferred for the first time African Regular troops to the peninsula to fight a rebellion.  He tried to flee to [[Portugal]] but in Huelva he decided to give himself up.  He was condemned to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment in the penitentiary of the Dueso.  In March 1934 he was granted amnesty by the Lerroux government and marched to live to Estoril. When on May 10, 1936 [[Niceto Alcalá Zamora]] was replaced as President of the Republic by Azaña, Sanjurjo, along with Generals [[Emilio Mola]], [[Francisco Franco]] and [[Gonzalo Queipo de Llano]] started plotting to overthrow the leftist Popular Front government. This led to the National Rising, of which he was the chief organizer and main ringleader, which started the [[Spanish Civil War]] on July 17, 1936. Sanjurjo died in a plane crash when he came to Spain on July 20, 1936 in an airplane piloted by Antonio Ansaldo.
+A monarchist opponent of the [[Second Spanish Republic]] proclaimed in 1931, he led a ''[[coup d'état]]'' known as [[Sanjurjada |''la Sanjurjada'']] in August 1932. The authorities easily suppressed the coup and initially condemned Sanjurjo to death, then later commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. The government of [[Alejandro Lerroux]] – formed after the [[1933 Spanish general election |1933 general election]] – eventually amnestied him in 1934.<ref>
+{{cite book
+ |last1                = Casanova
+ |first1               = Julián
+ |author-link1         = Julián Casanova Ruiz
+ |translator-last1     = Douch
+ |translator-first1    = Martin
+ |year                 = 2010
+ |orig-date            = 2007
+ |title                = The Spanish Republic and Civil War
+ |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=KsRNmT9GzY0C
+ |publication-place    = Cambridge
+ |publisher            = Cambridge University Press
+ |page                 = 77
+ |isbn                 = 978-1139490573
+ |access-date          = 27 September 2022
+ |quote                = When Lerroux became Prime Minister after the election in November 1933, he organised an amnesty for those involved in the coup [...].
+}}
+</ref>
+He took part, from his self-exile in Portugal, in the military plot for the 1936 coup d'état. Following the coup, Sanjurjo, expected by some to become the commander-in-chief of the [[Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War) |Nationalist faction]], died in an air crash on the third day of the war, when travelling back to Spain. He had chosen to fly in a small, overloaded plane, because the pilot was a friend of his. Sabotage was suspected,<ref>{{cite book|last1 = de Blaye|first1 = Edouard|edition = revised|year = 1976|title = Franco and the Politics of Spain|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tTtpAAAAMAAJ|series = Pelican books|publisher = Penguin|page = 104|isbn = 978-0140219494|access-date  = 27 September 2022|quote = Sanjurjo, said some, was the victim of sabotage carried out by Republican agents. It was Franco who had bribed the pilot, said others, to rid himself of his most dangerous rival.}}</ref>
+but never proven.
+==Early life==
+Sanjurjo was born in [[Pamplona]]. His father, Captain Justo Sanjurjo Bonrostra, was a [[Carlism|Carlist]]. His mother was Carlota Sacanell Desojo.
+==Military career==
+===Early career===
+He served in [[Cuban War of Independence|Cuba]] in 1896, in the [[Rif War (1909)]] in [[Morocco]], and in the [[Rif War (1920)]], including the regaining of the territory in [[Melilla]] lost after the [[Battle of Annual]] in 1921. In 1922, he was assigned to investigate corruption in the army command of Larache. He was High Commissioner of Spain in Morocco and reached the rank of lieutenant general. In 1925 he participated in the [[Alhucemas landing|amphibious landing at Alhucemas]]. With the completion of the 1920 Rif War, King [[Alfonso XIII]] awarded him the ''Gran Cruz de Carlos III'' on 28 March 1931. In 1928 he was made chief of a main directorate of the Civil Guard.
+===During the Second Republic===
+In 1923, [[Miguel Primo de Rivera]] came to power [[1923 Spanish coup d'état|in a military coup]], ruling Spain as dictator.<ref>Thomas (1961). p. 16.</ref> Gradually, Primo de Rivera's support faded,<ref>Preston (2006). p. 34.</ref> and he resigned in January 1930.<ref>Preston (2006). p. 36.</ref> General [[Dámaso Berenguer]] was ordered by the king to form a replacement government,<ref name="preston37">Preston (2006). p. 37.</ref> which annoyed Sanjurjo, who considered himself far better qualified.<ref>Beevor (2006). p. 18.</ref> Berenguer's [[Dictablanda of Dámaso Berenguer|''dictablanda'' dictatorship]] failed to provide a viable alternative to Primo de Rivera.<ref name="preston37"/> In the municipal elections of 12 April 1931, little support was shown for pro-monarchy parties in the major cities, and large numbers of people gathered in the streets of Madrid.<ref name="thomas18">Thomas (1961). pp. 18–19.</ref> Asked if the government could count on the support of Sanjurjo's Civil Guard, he rejected the suggestion.<ref>Beevor (2006). p. 19.</ref> [[King Alfonso XIII]] abdicated,<ref name="thomas18"/> and the [[Second Spanish Republic]] was formed.<ref name="preston37"/>
+Despite [[Manuel Azaña]]'s [[Military reform of Manuel Azaña|military reforms of 1931]], Sanjurjo retained his post as the commander of the [[Civil Guard (Spain)|Civil Guard]]; under his command they continued to use their traditionally brutal tactics such as the "[[ley de fugas]]", the excuse of shooting prisoners and later claiming that they were attempting to escape during an incident of unrest in [[Seville]].<ref>Beevor (2006) p. 2</ref>
+Sanjurjo became one of the first generals appointed to the command of the [[Spanish Republican Army]]. His sympathies, however, remained with the [[Monarchism|monarchist]] cause.<ref>Paul Preston. ''The coming of the Spanish Civil War: reform, reaction, and revolution in the Second Republic''. 2nd ed. Routledge, 1994. p. 51.</ref> When he clashed with [[Prime Minister]] [[Manuel Azaña]] over the [[Military reform of Manuel Azaña|military reforms]], he was replaced by General [[Miguel Cabanellas]]. He was demoted to chief of the customs officers in 1932 as a result of the [[Castilblanco events|events of Castilblanco]] and [[Arnedo events|Arnedo]] involving the Civil Guard. His confrontation with the ministry, [[Military reform of Manuel Azaña|Azaña's military reforms]], and the grants of regional autonomy to [[Catalonia]] and the [[Basque Country (greater region)|Basque Country]], led Sanjurjo to plot a rebellion with some Carlists under [[Manuel Fal Conde]], [[Tomás Domínguez Arévalo]], and other military officers. This rebellion, which was known as the [[Sanjurjada]], was proclaimed in [[Seville]] on 10 August 1932.<ref>Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. 2001. pp. 95–97</ref> Sanjurjo asserted that the rebellion was only against the current ministry and not against the Republic. It achieved initial success in Seville but absolute failure in Madrid. Sanjurjo attempted to flee to Portugal, but in [[Huelva]] he decided to give himself up.
+He was condemned to death, a sentence which was later commuted to life imprisonment in the penitentiary of the Dueso. In March 1934 he was granted amnesty by the [[Alejandro Lerroux|Lerroux]] government and went into exile in [[Estoril]], Portugal.
+===Coup===
+Between March and June 1936 Sanjurjo negotiated his leadership of a would-be [[1936 Carlist coup attempt|Carlist-only rising]] against the Republic. When [[Niceto Alcalá-Zamora]] was replaced as President of the Republic by Azaña on 10 May 1936, Sanjurjo joined with Generals [[Emilio Mola]], [[Francisco Franco]] and [[Gonzalo Queipo de Llano]] in a [[Spanish military conspiracy of 1936|plot to overthrow the republican government]]. This led to the Nationalist uprising on 17 July 1936, which started the Spanish Civil War.
+Determined to annihilate the Spanish Republic, when he was asked to become the leader of the rebellion by envoy [[Luis Bolín]] on 12 July 1936, Sanjurjo declared:
+{{blockquote|... to make political parties disappear, to sweep from the national spheres every liberal structure and to destroy their system.<ref>''Desaparición de los partidos políticos, barrer de las esferas nacionales todo tinglado liberal y destruir su sistema'' in [[Juan Eslava Galán]], ''Una Historia de la Guerra Civil que no va a Gustar a Nadie,'' Ed. Planeta. 2005. {{ISBN|8408058835}} p. 11</ref>}}
+==Death==
+On 20 July 1936, Sanjurjo was killed in [[Estoril]] in a plane crash, when he tried to fly back to Spain. He chose to fly in a small aircraft (The [[De Havilland Puss Moth|De Havilland DH.80]])<ref>{{Cite web |title=Crash of a De Havilland DH.80 in Cascais: 1 killed {{!}} Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives |url=https://www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash-de-havilland-dh80-cascais-1-killed |access-date=2024-09-08 |website=www.baaa-acro.com}}</ref> piloted by [[Juan Antonio Ansaldo]]. One of the main reasons for the crash was the heavy luggage that Sanjurjo insisted on bringing. Ansaldo had warned him that the load was too heavy, but Sanjurjo answered back:
+<blockquote>"I need to wear proper clothes as the new [[caudillo]] of Spain."<ref>{{cite book|title=Four Weeks One Summer: When It All Went Wrong|author=Nicholas Whitlam|isbn=978-1925333923|page=10|publisher=Australian Scholarly Publishing|year=2017}}</ref></blockquote>
+Unaccountably, Sanjurjo chose to fly in Ansaldo's plane rather than a much larger and more suitable airplane that was available. The larger plane was an 8-passenger [[de Havilland Dragon Rapide]], the same one which had transported Franco from the [[Canary Islands]] to Morocco. Sanjurjo, however, apparently preferred the drama of flying with a "daring aviator" such as Ansaldo (who himself survived the crash).<ref>Stanley G. Payne, ''Politics and the Military in Modern Spain'', 1967, p. 352</ref>
+When Mola also died in an aircraft accident, Franco was left as the sole effective leader of the Nationalist cause. This led to rumors that Franco had arranged the deaths of his two rivals, but no evidence has ever been produced to support this allegation.<ref>[https://spartacus-educational.com/SPsanjurjo.htm Jose Sanjurjo<!-- bot-generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070102050955/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPsanjurjo.htm|date=2007-01-02}} at www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk</ref>
+In 2017 the [[Historical Memory Law]] was applied by the authorities of [[Navarre]] and required that the Sanjurjo's remains be disinterred, over the objections of surviving family, and reburied in the military section of a municipal cemetery in the Spanish city of Melilla—an enclave on the coast of Morocco where Sanjurjo had once been in command. Further controversy ensued when Sanjurjo was buried with military honors in a military Pantheon of Heroes, as confirmed by the army.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.eldiario.es/sociedad/Defensa-entierra-Sanjurjo-Melilla-secreto_0_635536905.html|title=Defensa entierra con honores al general golpista José Sanjurjo en Melilla|last=histórica|first=Memoria|website=eldiario.es|date=21 April 2017 |language=es|access-date=2018-12-28}}</ref> The government of Navarre received assurances from the Ministry of Defense that special "honors were not offered" and that the remains were received as "just one more soldier".<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.abc.es/espana/abci-general-sanjurjo-enterrado-melilla-como-soldado-mas-201704230334_noticia.html|title=El general Sanjurjo fue enterrado en Melilla como un soldado más|date=2017-04-23|work=abc|access-date=2017-06-04|language=es-ES}}</ref>
+== In fiction ==
+The opening of the [[alternate history]] novel by [[Harry Turtledove]], ''Hitler's War'', in his series ''[[The War That Came Early]]'', begins with Sanjurjo's flight from Portugal. The [[point of divergence]] is that he accepts the pilot's advice and abandons the luggage so the flight is not overloaded and thus arrives safely. His behavior from then on is described as diverging from that of the actual Franco, with Spain taking a less isolated role in [[World War II]] and joining the [[Axis Powers]].
+José Sanjurjo, the beginnings of the [[Spanish Civil War]], and his ill-fated flight are discussed in José Saramago's book ''[[The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis]]''.
+==See also==
+* [[Sanjurjada]]
+* [[Villa Sanjurjo]]
+* [[White Terror (Spain)]]
+== References ==
+===Citations===
+{{Reflist}}
+===Sources===
+*{{cite book |title=The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 |first=Antony |last=Beevor |author-link=Antony Beevor |location=London |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |year=2006 |isbn=0-297-84832-1}}
+*{{Cite book |last=Preston |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Preston |year=2006 |title=The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, and Revenge |publisher=W. W. Norton and Company |location=New York |isbn=0-393-32987-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/spanishcivilwarr00pres }}
+*{{cite book|last=Thomas |first=Hugh |title=The Spanish Civil War |author-link=Hugh Thomas (writer)|year=1961 |location=London |publisher=Eyre and Spottiswoode |edition=1|oclc=395987}}
+{{Franco-Spanish conquest of Morocco |state=collapsed}}
+{{Authority control}}
+{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanjurjo, Jose}}
+[[Category:1872 births]]
+[[Category:1936 deaths]]
+[[Category:Grand Crosses of Military Merit]]
+[[Category:Grand Crosses of Naval Merit]]
+[[Category:Grand Crosses of the Royal and Military Order of San Hermenegild]]
+[[Category:Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand]]
+[[Category:Members of the Congress of Deputies of the Second Spanish Republic]]
+[[Category:People from Pamplona]]
+[[Category:Spanish anti-communists]]
+[[Category:Spanish expatriates in Portugal]]
+[[Category:Spanish generals]]
+[[Category:Spanish military personnel of the Spanish–American War]]
+[[Category:Spanish military personnel of the Rif War]]
+[[Category:Spanish military personnel killed in the Spanish Civil War (National faction)]]
+[[Category:Spanish monarchists]]
+[[Category:Spanish prisoners sentenced to death]]
+[[Category:Perpetrators of political repression in Francoist Spain]]
+[[Category:Grand Cross of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite]]
+[[Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1936]]
+[[Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in Portugal]]
+[[Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by Spain]]

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