Accordingly, such officers in the centre-south zone had no desire to see the return of Líster, Modesto and other Communist commanders who were committed to continuing the fight. These commanders, after doing what they could to improve the conditions of their men, returned to Spain over the next few days. Tagüeña states that he, Líster, Francisco Romero Marín and several other officers from the Army of the Ebro returned on 19 February. There is some confusion over the date of this flight – in two books of memoirs, Líster dated it both five and six days earlier on 13 and 14 February. However, they coincide in lamenting that numerous leading figures of the Communist Party, including Antonio Mije, Francisco Antón, Santiago Álvarez and Santiago Carrillo, did not return on the grounds that the PCE did not want them exposed to danger. Líster recalled that the thirty-three-seat aircraft in which he had travelled had twenty empty seats. Hidalgo de Cisneros told Burnett Bolloten, a United Press correspondent who, by his own account, was a Communist sympathizer at the time, that the last six aircraft that flew from France to Republican Spain were ‘nearly empty’.39 That Negrín had his doubts about those who would or wouldn’t return was reported later by Francisco Romero Marín, who had returned with Hidalgo de Cisneros. When they entered Negrín’s office in the Presidencia building in the Castellana, the Prime Minister exclaimed: ‘Here come another group of lunatics.’40
Cordón met Rojo on 18 February in Perpignan. The new Spanish Consul Rafael Méndez informed them that he had received a cable from Negrín ordering all senior officers and officials of the Ministry of Defence to return to the central zone. A visibly annoyed Rojo said: ‘Well, I will not regard myself as having received that order until the Minister of Defence gives it to me personally.’ Méndez told him to do what he liked and remarked that he thought that soldiers did not need to receive orders to rejoin the army in time of war. Rojo replied that he knew better than anyone where his duty lay and that he was fully occupied in attending to those who were arriving in France and in trying to organize the matériel brought by the army into France. When Méndez replied that there were people doing that already, Rojo walked away without a word. Three days later, Cordón had dinner at the Toulouse railway station with Rojo and Jurado. Equipped with splendid new leather luggage, the two men were on their way to Paris to seek more money at the Embassy for their work with the exiled officers. They had already spent the 4.5 million francs originally given them for this purpose. When Cordón asked if they planned to return to Spain, Rojo again stated that he had not received a direct order to do so and that, in any case, he would go only if he could do something concrete by way of negotiating peace. Cordón reminded them that orders had been issued for their return and that, if they didn’t obey, measures would be taken against them. Jurado replied threateningly that, in such a case, they might make damaging revelations – presumably a reference to the failures of the Republican authorities to prepare for the evacuation and subsequent care of the refugees. Rojo would later make the implausible claim in his book that he had been preparing to return when the Casado coup intervened and made it impossible.41
In fact, Rojo’s absence from Negrín’s side was to contribute substantially to the success of the Casado coup. As Vicente Uribe, wrote in his memoir of the period:
It saw the Government lose a valuable collaborator who would have been immensely useful because of his reputation, and the influence that he wielded over the career officers and the subversives who were already plotting received a major boost from Rojo’s desertion. They knew all about his views and his refusal. Rojo himself had made sure to let them know. In any case, it was evident that he had not accompanied the Government back to Spain. In contrast, the Communist officers had returned to what remained of Republican territory to do their duty.42
Hidalgo de Cisneros stayed on for several days vainly negotiating with the French authorities for his men to fly back to Spain in their own aircraft. At the Paris Embassy, he met both Rojo and Enrique Jurado. Azaña asked for all three to meet him and explain the military situation in the wake of the fall of Catalonia. All three gave bleak reports, of which the most pessimistic was that by Jurado. When Azaña asked them to put their thoughts in writing, Hidalgo suspected that the President was simply looking for a justification for his resignation. After consulting with the Ambassador, Marcelino Pascua, Hidalgo refused, stating that such a report should come from the Minister of Defence, that is to say Negrín. Rojo and Jurado used the same excuse. Azaña was greatly displeased. When Hidalgo returned to Madrid, he recounted this to a furious Negrín, who immediately sent a telegram to Azaña saying that he would hold him responsible for the consequences of behaviour that he regarded as tantamount to treachery. In fact, Rojo had already given Azaña a deeply gloomy oral assessment of the situation which almost certainly reinforced the President’s already firm determination not to return to Spain. Indeed, Azaña would later claim that this was the case.43 Negrín was understandably annoyed and so Rojo wrote a letter to him explaining that he had been virtually ambushed by Azaña during what he had assumed would be merely a formal visit in accordance with protocol. Along with his letter, Rojo enclosed a detailed report on the economic, human and military reasons why continued resistance in the centre-south zone was futile. It seems that he was unaware of the extent to which the rhetoric of resistance was a ploy by Negrín to enhance his diplomacy. Before receiving the letter, Negrín sent, via Marcelino Pascua, a firm instruction to Rojo to make reports to Azaña only via the Minister of Defence, that is to say, Negrín himself. Rojo then wrote another letter reiterating that he had fallen into a trap set by Azaña. The letter also contained a detailed report on the condition of the refugees. Rojo sent copies of these various reports to Matallana, which meant that their gloomy conclusions were known both to other members of Casado’s conspiracy and, of course, to the Francoist SIPM.44
Rojo subsequently claimed that he had stayed on in France because his orders were to remain and do everything possible to ameliorate the situation of the thousands of Republican soldiers now in exile. It is true that he distributed funds to officers for them to buy food, but he also ignored the multiple orders from Negrín to return.45 Rojo declared later that ‘there was no shortage of heavy hints that I should also return’. This was an utterly disingenuous reference to explicit instructions issued by Negrín, not to mention the conversations recounted in their memoirs by Cordón, Tagüeña and Zugazagoitia.46
According to Martínez Barrio, the President of the Cortes, who saw Azaña every day in the Paris Embassy, the text of the telegram sent to the President by Negrín in mid-February was cold, formal and rather threatening. Azaña, who regarded the war as effectively over, had reacted furiously: ‘A fine programme he’s offering me! To enter Madrid, accompanied by Negrín and Uribe, with Pasionaria and Pepe Díaz on the running board of the car.’ (José Díaz was secretary-general of the PCE.) Martínez Barrio pointed out to Azaña that, if he refused to accept Negrín’s insistence that he return to Spain, it was his constitutional duty either to resign as President or else to appoint a new prime minister. Had Azaña resigned then, Martínez Barrio felt that, as his automatic successor, he could have helped Negrín seek a reasonable peace. As it was, Azaña was sunk in lethargy and did not respond. Some days later, Negrín sent another ‘even ruder and more humiliating’ telegram ‘in the name of the Spanish people’ accusing the President of failing in his