Emilio Mola

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Emilio Mola Vidal (June 9, 1887 – June 3, 1937) was a Nationalist commander during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). He is best-known for coining the phrase "fifth column."

Mola was born in Cuba (at that time a Spanish province) where his father, an army officer, was stationed. He enrolled at the Infantry Academy of Toledo in 1907. He served in Spain's colonial war in Morocco where he received the Medalla Militar Individual, and became an authority on military affairs. By 1927 he was a brigadier-general.

Mola was made Director of Security in 1930. This was a political post and his conservative views made him unpopular with opposition liberal and socialist politicians. When the left-wing Popular Front government was elected in February 1936 Mola was made military governor of Pamplona in Navarre, which the government regarded as a backwater. But the area was a center of Carlist activity and Mola himself secretly collaborated with the movement.

In the spring of 1936, Mola joined a group of army officers led by José Sanjurjo who desired to oust the Popular Front government. Mola's energy and organizational ability soon made him the group's chief planner, while Sanjurjo remained a figurehead. Mola, whose codename was director, sent secret instructions to the various military units to be involved in the uprising. After several delays, July 18, 1936 was chosen as the date of the coup. Francisco Franco's participation was not confirmed until early July.^[1] Although events ran ahead of schedule in the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco, Mola waited until July 19 to proclaim the revolt.^[2] When Mola's brother was captured by the Republicans in Barcelona, the government threatened his life. Mola replied: "No, he knows how to die as an officer. I can neither take back my word to my followers and probably you cannot either from yours." Mola then ordered systematic executions in captured cities for the purpose of instilling fear.

The Nationalist coup failed to gain control of either Madrid or other urban areas, though most of the army supported it. As the situation devolved into civil war, Sanjurjo was killed in an air crash on July 20th. Mola then became Nationalist commander in the north, while Franco became commander in the south. On September 5th, a Nationalist offensive sent by General Mola under Colonel Alfonso Beorlegui Canet took Irún and closed the French border. Mola's forces went on to secure the whole of the province of Guipúzcoa, isolating the remaining Republican provinces in the north.

A junta in Burgos proved unable to set overall strategy thus Franco was chosen commander-in-chief at a meeting of ranking generals on September 21st. Mola continued to command the Army of the North and led an unsuccessful effort to take Madrid in October. In a radio address, he described Nationalists sympathizers in the city as a "fifth column" that supplemented his four military columns.^[3] Mola died on June 3, 1937 when his plane crashed in bad weather while returning to Vitoria. The deaths of Sanjurjo and Mola left Franco as the preeminent leader of the Nationalist cause. This led to the suspicion that Franco contributed in some way to the deaths of his two rivals, but no evidence has been produced to support this idea.^[2]

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