One day about the beginning of July I was walking down the principal street in Malaga. As I passed the Club Mercantil an old gentleman whom I know slightly came to me and in a state of great excitement exclaimed: ╥Good news, good news. Within a fortnight Calvo Sotelo [the monarchist leader] will be King of Spain.╙
Then on July 12 Calvo Sotelo was taken from his house by night and shot. There is some mystery in this assassination. The usual reason given for it is that it was committed by the Storm Troops or republican police as a reprisal for the murder of one of their officers the day before by Fascists. It is also said that it was done on the orders of those who wished to precipitate a rising of the Right, as they considered that was the only way to a Communist revolution. The one thing that seems certain is that the Government, which was extremely anxious to avoid trouble, had nothing to do with it.
It was decided by the rebel generals to utilise the feeling of indignation which the assassination had caused among their own partisans. The rising, which I am told had been arranged for July 25, therefore broke out on the evening of July 18 in Spain. It had begun on the previous day in Morocco.
What happened in Malaga was this. At five o╒clock on the evening of July 18 a company of infantry marched out of the barracks and proceeded, with bands playing, towards the centre of the town. There was already great tension, since the news of the rising in Morocco had become known. As they marched the soldiers were asked where they were going. ╥To proclaim a state of war.╙ This is the legal procedure in such cases, and the soldiers thought that it was by order of the Government. The Governor╒s office was rung up, and it was learned that no such order had been given. This news quickly spread among the bystanders. The company had reached the Custom offices. Suddenly a workman stepped forward, saluted with the clenched fist, and cried ╥Viva la Republica!╙ The officer in command drew his revolver and shot him. This was the signal. The Storm Troops on the steps of the Custom-house opened fire. Workmen from behind trees and Fascists from windows joined in. The troops tried to storm the Custom-house. But this they failed to do, and after a great deal of firing they were driven into the Calle Larios, the main shopping street of the city, where they were left alone.
Meanwhile the Governor had released the soldiers from their duty to their officers, and they began to stream out of the barracks into the town. They were the less disposed to fight for having been inoculated two days before against typhoid. Some of them approached the pickets of the rebel company. One by one the men slunk away till only one sentry was left. The officers got back to the barracks, where they were taken prisoners. Apart from isolated Fascists, who continued sniping from the roofs ╤ and this did not altogether cease for two days ╤ the fighting was over. What seems rather odd considering the tens of thousands of rounds let off, less than twenty were killed on that night. On both sides they were bad shots.
At dawn the workmen began to stream out of their quarters of the city. Brandishing revolvers and red flags, singing the ╥Internationale,╙ and making a strange rhythmical sound ╤ ╥Uh-uh-uh,╙ which those who heard it told me was most terrifying ╤ they marched into the Calle Larios. Selecting particular houses, sometimes those from which snipers fired at them, sometimes those of people particularly hated or known to be concerned in this movement, they began to set fire to them.
It was done methodically. The house was first searched, householders on either side were warned, efforts were made to prevent the fire from spreading. In this way half the houses in the Calle Larios were burnt, about twenty houses in other parts of the town and in the garden suburb to the east of the city some thirty or forty villas. But no churches or convents. These burnings went on all day until about midnight, and then, apart from a small recrudescence, stopped. No one was killed and there was no looting.
A grocer╒s shop, for example, was broken into: the hams, wines, and liqueurs were piled in the street and set fire to. The workmen, many of whom must have had hungry families at home, watched them burn. I asked one of them why they did not send the food to their union and distribute it. ╥No,╙ he replied, ╥Spanish workmen do not steal. They have too much sense of honour.╙ If one is horrified at the material destruction ╤ and much of it is, of course, perfectly stupid, ╤ one should not forget the provocation.
