Painting the Armada at the House of Lords

by Kathryn Hadley,

A press reception was organised this morning at the House of Lords to mark the completion of a project begun in January 2008 to recreate six paintings of the Armada tapestries, which were destroyed in the fire at the Palace of Westminster almost 200 years ago. The tapestries were originally commissioned to record one of the greatest episodes of British history; but the story of the tapestries themselves is equally great, and fascinating.

It begins 418 years ago, in 1592, when Lord Howard of Effingham, who had served as Lord High Admiral at the time of the Spanish Armada, commissioned the Dutch naval artist and first seascape painter, Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom (1566-1640) to create a series of ten tapestries to commemorate the British victory. The tapestries were woven in Brussels by Francis Spieringx. They cost £1,582, the equivalent of 87 years wages for a workman in 1590. They are believed to have measured 14 feet in height and between 17 and 28 feet in width and were interwoven with gold and silver thread. When they were completed, in 1595, they initially hung in Lord Howard’s Chelsea manor. They were then moved, in 1616, to his new London residence, Arundel House, before being sold to King James I for £1,628.

In the early 1650s, the tapestries were transferred to the Royal Palace of Westminster, where they hung in the then House of Lords Chamber, known as the Parliament Chamber. In 1801, when the Peers moved to the Court of Requests, a larger chamber which suited the need for increased seating after the Act of Union with Ireland, the tapestries followed suit. They hung in the Court of Requests until the fire on October 16th, 1834, in which all ten tapestries perished.

The significance and influence of the tapestries had been considerable. They were mentioned in debate on several occasions and were used as propaganda. In 1798, for example, when concern over a possible French invasion was being debated, they were used to arouse patriotic popular support against the French forces. The artist James Gillray was commissioned to produce images that ‘might rouse all the People to an active Union against that invasion’. In a series of satirical prints entitled Consequences of a successful French Invasion, he depicted a French Admiral ordering his men to destroy the tapestries in the Lords Debating Chamber.

House of Lords Researcher, Julian Dee, whose research formed the basis of the proposal for the recreation of the tapestries, underlined the changing historical significance of the tapestries:

‘These recreated images will tell us something about every generation that has
risen since Elizabethan times. James I displayed them in the Banqueting
Hall to receive the Spanish Ambassador. It has been suggested that in so doing
perhaps he could pursue dialogue with Spain without the appearance of
weakness. By contrast, his son Charles I folded these martial images away
for much of his reign. Cromwell's men had "The Story of '88" displayed in
Parliament so that generations of peers - most notably the Earl of Chatham -
would evoke the memory of the heroes commemorated in the tapestry
borders. When it was said that Napoleon wanted to put the Bayeux Tapestries
on a pre-invasion tour of France, it was suggested the same be done in Britain
for the Armada ones.’

Seven years after the fire, in 1841, during the construction of the New Palace of Westminster, a Fine Arts Commission chaired by Prince Albert was established in order to oversee the production of artwork for the interior of the palace. It was decided that the Prince’s Chamber would be illustrated with subjects from Tudor history and a space was designed to hang six paintings of the original Armada tapestries. The paintings were to be based on a series of engravings of the tapestries created in the 1730s by the artist John Pine. Pine’s engravings were the only surviving record of the tapestries.

However, when Prince Albert died, in 1861, only one of the paintings had been completed. It was not until 1907, that it was proposed, once again, to recreate the Armada tapestries. But once again, the Armada Tapestry proposal failed to be realised. One hundred years later, in 2007, it was proposed, for the third time, that a generous donation by Mark Pigott OBE should be used to recreate in painted format the 16th-century Armada tapestries. Anthony Oakshett, the lead artist on the project, began his work to recreate the tapestries the following year, using Pine’s 18th-century engravings and the only completed painting in the series The English Fleet pursuing the Spanish Fleet against Fowey as his key historical sources.

The result is spectacular. On Monday, June 21st, members of the public will be able to see the paintings on a tour of parliament for the first time. In the autumn, they will be permanently moved to the Prince’s Chamber where they were originally designed to be hung. Try to spot Anthony Oakshett’s depiction of Mark Pigott as a 16th-century nobleman on horseback in the right-hand corner of the last painting in the series!

Images (Palace of Westminster Collection):

- Richard Burchett, The English fleet pursuing the Spanish fleet against Fowey

- James Gillray, Consequences of a successful French Invasion

- Anthony Oakshett, Drake takes De Valdes's galleon; the Lord Admiral pursues the enemy

First Impressions: Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler

by Kathryn Hadley

Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler opens today at the British Museum. Organised in anticipation of the anniversaries in 2010 of the independence of Mexico (1810) and the Mexican Revolution (1910), the exhibition is the last in the museum’s series of exhibitions exploring power and empire. Moctezuma II (1467-1520) was the ninth and the last ruler of the Mexica people. His father Axayacatl, the sixth ruler, was succeeded by his two brothers and Moctezuma was elected in 1502. The exhibition explores the foundation of the Aztec empire and its capital Tenochtitlan, Moctezuma’s coronation, the religion and Gods of the Mexica people, Moctezuma’s role as a warrior and military leader and the Spanish conquest.

Paul Lay wrote yesterday that Moctezuma emerged in the exhibition as an ‘insubstantial’ figure. In my view, such a representation is, however, inevitable primarily due to the nature of the historic sources used to document the period. Mexican sources of the time were largely destroyed following the Spanish conquest and the main surviving sources are Spanish accounts. Some were written posthumously, but there also exist contemporary eyewitness accounts written by Hernan Cortes (1485-1547) himself and by those who accompanied him.

Cortes’ Letters from Mexico consist of a series of five letters written by Cortes to Charles V of Spain and document the conquest of Mexico from Cortes’ arrival at Veracruz to his journey to Honduras in 1525. A second key source is The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz del Castillo who accompanied Cortes on his voyage to Mexico. Nevertheless, both sources should be read with a pinch of salt. Cortes was in dispute with the crown and would inevitably have sought to highlight his achievements in an attempt to justify his voyage.

The nature of the sources for the period is just one grey and shadowy area in the representation of Moctezuma. How accurate are Spanish accounts of the period? How did the Mexica view their leader? One of the Spanish documents on display in the exhibition is a Spanish map of Tenochtitlan. The map was drawn in 1514, three years after the conquest, but the artist appears to have had first hand knowledge of the city and his representation was on the whole accurate. Nevertheless, his addition of spires and pitched roofs to some of the buildings illustrates perfectly how Spanish authors and artists may have twisted what they saw and experienced in Mexico in accordance with their own visions of the world and the expectations of their Spanish audiences at home.

Moctezuma’s achievements and success as a leader are also shrouded in controversy. Moctezuma was in many ways a great ruler: he expanded the empire to the south of Tenochtitlan; successfully formed a Triple Alliance between the major cities of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco and Tlacopan; developed trading links across Mexico and commissioned a program of lavish public building in Tenochtitlan. But despite these achievements he is remembered and blamed in Mexico for the demise of the Aztec empire.

Furthermore, the circumstances and causes of Moctezuma’s death remain a mystery: was he murdered by the Spanish or stoned to death by his own angry people, who felt that he had betrayed them? Again, the sources offer different interpretations. Whilst many views suggest that the Mexica turned against their ruler, according to The Florentine Codex, Moctezuma’s followers sought to retrieve his body in order for it to be cremated. The Florentine Codex is a series of twelve books written under the supervision of the Spanish Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagun between approximately 1540 and 1585. It is a copy of the records of interviews with indigenous sources and remains the main source of Mexica life in the years preceding the Spanish conquest.

Numerous other questions also remain unanswered. Was the Aztec civilization really as violent and brutal as it is often portrayed - notably in Hollywood films such as Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto? Has it been unfairly portrayed? Moreover, why did Moctezuma become such a mythical figure in Europe notably in the centuries following the Spanish conquest? In 16th-century Europe there was a growing appetite for accounts of indigenous kings and on display in the exhibition is the earliest European portrait of Moctezuma by the French artist Andre Thevet dated to 1584. Why did he become more familiar in Europe than in Mexico?

The figure of Moctezuma is surrounded by unanswered questions and issues for debate. Yet, the British Museum’s exhibition largely avoids confronting these questions. These uncertainties and the insubstantiality of Moctezuma’s person are, however, the most fascinating and focal point in the study of the Aztec empire and the Spanish conquest. They would have been the perfect starting point for the exhibition and the perfect theme around which to base it. Has the British Museum missed the point?

For further information on the Aztec Empire and the Spanish conquest of Mexico, visit our History of Mexico focus page.

Images:

- Turquoise mosaic mask, c. 1500-1521, Mexica/Mixtec (The Trustees of the British Museum)

- Portrait of Moctezuma by Antonio Rodriguez, 1680-1697 on loan from the Museo degli Argenti, Florence (su concesione del Ministero per I Beni e le Attivita Culturali)

Spanish passport for British members of the International Brigades

by Kathryn Hadley

Following the unveiling of a plaque just a month ago in the Fuencarral Cemetery, in the northern outskirts of Madrid, a further step was taken, yesterday, to honour the British members of the International Brigades who fought on the side of the republican government during the Spanish Civil War.

Seven surviving British veterans who joined the International Brigades were granted dual Spanish citizenship, yesterday, June 10th, at the Spanish embassy in London. The eldest veteran, Lou Kenton is 101 years old. Joseph Khan, aged 94, was the youngest survivor to be granted a Spanish passport. Carles Casajuana, Spain’s ambassador to the UK also awarded Spanish citizenship to Penny Feiwel, aged 100, Paddy Cochrane, 96, Thomas Watters, 96, Sam Lesser, 95, and Jack Edwards, aged 95.

An eighth veteran, Les Gibson, aged 96, was forced to decline the offer due to ill health. The offer also came too late for two other former members of the International Brigades, Jack Jones and Bob Doyle. Jack Jones, the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, from 1969 to 1978, died just over a month ago, on April 21st, but his son picked up his passport on his behalf. Bob Doyle died at the beginning of the year, on January 22nd.

Carles Casajuana was quoted in an article on The Times website:

‘This is an act of gratitude, an act of recognition […] We wish to pay homage to a group of extraordinary men and women who 70 years ago decided to give up their comfortable life and go to Spain to fight for democracy and freedom.’

He was also quoted in a previous article published on the website of The Guardian:

‘It should have been done earlier, but better late than never.’

Quoted by The Times, the 96-year-old Scotsman, Thomas Watters, described his feelings yesterday:

‘I feel great, elated. This is one of the great days of my life’.

Watters was a bus driver in Glasgow, when he decided to volunteer in Spain. He worked as an ambulance driver for the Scottish Ambulance Unit ferrying wounded republicans from the frontline. He explained how, unlike some volunteers, he was not primarily motivated by political conviction and anti-fascism:

‘This opportunity to do something of some good attracted me immediately […] Nothing to do with politics; I had no interest in politics.’

Paddy Cochrane, on the other hand, had strong leftwing sympathies. He was born in Dublin to a father who was killed by the Black and Tans. He left Liverpool, where he was looking for work, travelled to London and signed up as an ambulance driver. He was wounded by a hand grenade and taken to hospital. He also described his experience in an interview with The Guardian:

‘It was terribly hot there, practically unbearable, and we all slept out in the open. As well as us there was a whole row of chaps with shocking head wounds that could never be cured. They were dying … I remember one of them kept shaking the flies away. It was awful … I was coming to and passing out, coming to and passing out.’

The International Brigade Memorial Trust, which was formed in 2002, believes that there may be more surviving veterans who would be eligible for Spanish citizenship. Yesterday, its secretary, Marlene Sidaway, appealed for veterans who had fought in Spain to contact the trust.

The website of the International Brigade Memorial Trust is http://www.international-brigades.org.uk/

Obituaries of Bob Doyle and Jack Jones are available on the website of The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/16/obituary-bob-doyle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/23/jack-jones-obituary

For further information on the Spanish Civil War, visit the ‘timeline of Spanish history’ section of our Spanish History focus page.

Unpacking the Mexican Suitcase

by Kathryn Hadley

The Mexican Suitcase, three small damaged cardboard boxes, arrived at the International Center of Photography in New York from Mexico City in late December 2007. It contained the Spanish Civil War negatives of Robert Capa, which were presumed lost following their disappearance from his Paris studio at the beginning of the Second World War. Two weeks ago, the International Center of Photography announced the completion of the digitization of the lost negatives, which are now available online.

The suitcase contained a total of 4,300 frames in 126 rolls of film, taken between May 1936 and March 1939. Approximately one third of the rolls were attributed to Capa, but 46 rolls were also attributed to David Seymour and 32 are believed to have been taken by Gerda Taro. They reveal Taro and Capa’s full coverage of important stories such as the Battle of Teruel, from late December 1937 to early January 1938, and Capa’s photographs of the internment camps for Spanish refugees in the south of France, taken in March 1939. The Taro film includes rolls of her final days shooting in Spain before she was killed during the Battle of Brunete in July 1937. Many of Seymour’s photos were also previously unknown. They include images of daily life and republican parades, as well as portraits of important figures of the republican cause, such as President Manuel Azana and Federico Garcia Lorca. They also reveal his coverage of the Basque area, which he visited in January 1937.

Capa, Seymour and Taro were Jewish immigrants from Hungary, Poland and Germany, who were all working in Paris in the 1930s. In October 1939, however, as German forces were advancing towards Paris, Capa fled to New York. It is believed that he left all his negatives in his Paris studio with his dark room manager Imre "Csiki" Weiss (1911–2006). The story of the rolls and their journey from France, to Mexico, to New York is extraordinary.

Weiss was also a Jewish Hungarian émigré. He did not manage to flee from Paris, however, and was interned in Morocco. He was released by Robert Capa and his brother Cornell Capa (the founder of ICP), in 1941, and thereafter travelled to Mexico. In July 1975, Weiss wrote a letter to Cornell Capa in which he described what he had done with the negatives at the time of the German invasion in 1939:

‘In 1939, when the Germans approached Paris, I put all Bob's negatives in a
rucksack and bicycled it to Bordeaux to try to get it on a ship to Mexico. I met
a Chilean in the street and asked him to take my film packages to his consulate
for safekeeping. He agreed.’

It is now also known that the suitcase was given to the Mexican ambassador to the Vichy government, General Francisco Aguilar González, in 1941-42. How this happened remains a mystery, however. Where were the negatives between 1939 and 1941 and who gave them to the Mexican ambassador? Did González ever know that he was the receiver of the negatives? If he did, was he aware of their significance? González died in 1971.

The negatives only eventually resurfaced in 1995, when they were discovered by the Mexican film producer Benjamin Traver. Traver’s aunt was a close friend of General Francisco Aguilar González and, following the death of his aunt, Traver inherited the negatives. In 1995, he contacted Professor Jerald R. Green from Queens College in New York asking for advice on how to catalogue the negatives and make them available to the public. Green was a friend of Cornell Capa and informed him of the letter. In 2003, in preparation for two exhibitions on Capa and Taro scheduled for 2007, chief curator Brian Wallis contacted Traver to ask him to return the negatives. He was, however, unsuccessful and in early 2007 he employed an independent curator and filmmaker, Trisha Ziff, based in Mexico City to help him to persuade Traver. Ziff first met Traver in May 2007. On December 19th 2007, Ziff arrived at the ICP with the suitcase.

Following the successful scanning and digitization of the rolls, the ICP is currently pursuing research on the negatives in preparation for an exhibition and publication planned for the autumn of 2010.

The ICP launched a website devoted to the mysterious story of the Mexican suitcase and to its conservation work to preserve the suitcase and scan its contents. For further information, visit http://museum.icp.org/mexican_suitcase/

For further information on the Spanish Civil War, visit our Spanish History focus page.

News of the Spanish Civil War: British volunteers remembered and republican propaganda posters online

by Kathryn Hadley

The Spanish Ministry of Culture has recently made live a collection of 2280 republican political posters printed between 1936 and 1939, which provide an insight into republican propaganda during the Spanish Civil War. The collection was put up on the website of PARES (Portal de Archivos Espanoles). The website is part of a project launched by the Ministry of Culture to create an online database of Spanish national archives.

One of the Ministry of Culture’s most recent projects is to put online and provide public access to the Archivo Rojo. The Archivo Rojo is a collection of 3051 black and white photographs, taken before and during the Spanish Civil War, and commissioned by the council responsible for the defense of Madrid. They document various aspects of the war, including weapons and military equipment, the destruction of buildings, casualties, military hospitals and prisoners of war, and were used as propaganda by the republican government to reveal the horrors and destruction of the Civil War.

With the view that propaganda could be used as an effective weapon against fascism, the republican government created the Ministry of Propaganda in 1936. In an article published in the national newspaper, the Gaceta de la Republica, the following year, Manuel Azana described its role: to reveal to the Spanish people the dramatic reality and consequences of the war; to inform international opinion of the efforts of the Spanish people and their legitimate government to fight to their freedom; and to prepare public opinion for the necessary rebuilding of Spain in the aftermath of the war. The Ministry of Propaganda was, however, relatively short-lived as it became gradually taken over by the fascist forces. In 1938, the Servicio Nacional de Prensa was created under the authority of Franco’s Ministry of the Interior.

The archives are available on http://pares.mcu.es/

A plaque was also unveiled, last Thursday, in the small Fuencarral Cemetery, in the northern outskirts of Madrid, to honour the 2,000 British members of the International Brigades who fought on the side of the republican government during the Spanish Civil War. There were already plaques on the wall of the cemetery dedicated to the memory of the Polish, French, Jewish, Yugoslavian and Italian volunteers, but, until last week, there was no national memorial to the British soldiers. This move to remember the British volunteers was, however, criticised for coming too late.

To the present day, 525 British victims of the conflict lie in unmarked graves across Spain. There remain only seven British survivors of the 2,000 volunteers who fought against Franco’s troops. They are all in their 90s and were too frail to be able to travel to attend the brief ceremony organised in their memory, last week.

It is necessary, however, to put the remembrance of the British volunteers into perspective. The Spanish government only officially recognised the victims of the Spanish Civil War and of the Franco dictatorship, including its own Spanish victims, just over a year ago with the promulgation of the Ley de Memoria, the Law of Historical Memory, on October 31st 2007. In October last year, the cabinet of Zapatero announced plans for new legislation designed to offer official recognition and compensation to the victims of the Spanish Civil War, including measures to recognise the role of foreign volunteers and to make it easier for surviving members of the International Brigades to obtain Spanish nationality. Foreign volunteers were first offered Spanish citizenship thirteen years ago. Despite Zapatero’s announcement last year, a date has yet to be fixed for them to be awarded joint citizenship.

For further information on the memory of the Spanish Civil War, read our articles Reading History: The Spanish Civil War and Revenge and Reconciliation

For general information on the Spanish Civil War, visit our Spanish History focus page.

Image: one of the political posters on the Portal de Archivos Espanoles, quoting the Prime Minister of the time, Juan Negrin: 'to resist was, and remains today, to open up the route to victory'

Bicentenary of Reconquest of Vigo

By Charlotte Crow,

A great deal of exploding gunpowder and a hectic pageant involving actors and ordinary citizens jostling the narrow streets in period costume, will today sound the climax to a series of celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of the Reconquest of Vigo, a little-known but significant local episode in the Peninsular War. This unlikely popular uprising of March 28th, 1809, in the coastal town in northwest Spain was the first successful attempt to see off French rule in the region of Galicia, following Napoleon’s occupation of the country in 1807. That year 100,000 French troops had marched onto Spanish territory ostensibly to tackle the British threat in Portugal. But by April 1808 the Franco-Spanish alliance was severed as Napoleon forced the Spanish monarchy to abdicate, transferring the crown from Fernando VII to his own elder brother Joseph Bonaparte.

Today Vigo is better known as the biggest fishing port in Europe with a population of around 300,000. In 1808, it was a walled town of just 10,000. The French did not reach the place until January 1809, the same month they humiliated the retreating British at the battle of Corunna to the north. However, their occupation, under the leadership of General Antonio Chalot, lasted only 58 days. Within that time, though many of Vigo’s men were away fighting the French elsewhere, local citizens initiated a campaign of resistance to undermine the occupiers, culminating in the insurrection of March 28th. Two months later the story reached Britain, with The Times reporting on its front page intelligence ‘of an insurrection having broken out in the northwest of Spain. According to these accounts, the peasants had collected in the neighbourhood of Vigo, Pontevedra and Villagrave, and engaged with success the French troops’.

During the revolt, which was assisted by Portuguese soldiers, more than 1,400 Napoleonic troops were taken prisoner and the French withdrew from a conquered Spanish settlement for the first time. The action boosted similar offensives across Galicia – and according to at least one local historian can be seen as a thread linking directly to Wellington’s ultimate victory and Napoleon’s demise. The town was subsequently awarded the special civic status by the Regency in recognition of the action.

The Reconquest has been commemorated in Vigo ever since, but the bicentenary events, organised by the offices of the deputy mayor Santiago Dominquez, are the most elaborate to date. A major exhibition, on show until March 31st, at the Pazo De Castrelos Quinones de Leon, a stately-home-turned-museum, has brought together more than 200 paintings, documents and artefacts from museums across Europe. The First Congress on the Reconquest of Vigo, meanwhile, has gathered academics from across Europe to explore the uprising in the wider landscape of 19th-century Europe and the Napoleonic Wars. Among those attending the conference was Prince Charles Napoleon Bonaparte, the great, great grand nephew of Napoleon and President of the European Federation of Napoleonic Cities.

Two websites are particularly useful in order to find out more about the history of the Reconquest and this year’s bicentenary celebrations:
http://www.reconquistadevigo.com/
http://peninsularwar200.org/events.html

For further information on the role of the Spanish guerrillas in Spain’s war against Napoleon, read our article The Spanish Guerrillas in the Peninsular War
For further information on grass roots opposition to Napoleonic rule, read our article Popular Resistance in Napoleonic Europe
For more information on Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars, visit our ‘Ten Great Figures of French History’ page.

Mass grave in Mexico from the colonial era

by Kathryn Hadley

A mass grave from the time of the Spanish conquest has recently been discovered in Mexico City raising new questions about the fate of the Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlan, and its inhabitants following its conquest led by Hernan Cortes in 1521. The discovery was announced on Tuesday. The four-by-10-metre burial site was discovered by archaeologists initially searching for a palace complex in the Tlatelolco area, to the North of the city. It contains 49 skeletons laid out in neat lines all lying face-up with their arms crossed. The skeletons are mostly those of young men, but also include those of two children, one teenager and an elderly person wearing a ring. Several skeletons showed broken bones that had mended suggesting that they may be the bodies of warriors.

Salvador Guilliem, the leader of the excavations for Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, described the discovery as completely unexpected:

"We were completely taken by surprise. We didn't expect to find this massive
funeral complex".

Tlatelolco was a city-state on the northern part of an island on Lake Texcoco. It is believed to have been founded in 1337, fifteen years after the foundation of Tenochtitlan (to the South of the island), as an independent city-state. The two city-states maintained close trading links, however, and at the end of the 15th century Tlatelolco became subject to Tenochtitlan. The Aztec empire was formally founded by Itzcoatl in 1428. By 1500, the Aztecs had conquered most of central Mexico and the empire reached its height under Moctezuma II, who ruled from 1502 to 1520. When Cortes arrived in Tenochtitlan on November 8th, 1519, accounts by Spanish conquistadores described the city as one of the largest in the world on a par with Paris, Constantinople and Venice (ref. Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s account of the conquest Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva Espana – The Conquest of New Spain). Tenochtitlan was eventually conquered on August 31st, 1521. The area where the burial was found is believed to be the site of the last Indian resistance to the Spanish during the month long battle for the city. Relatively little is known, however, about the period immediately after the fall of the city, when Cortes allegedly razed most pyramids and temples and abandoned the city. He fled to the outskirts of the city before returning some time later to build a Spanish style city on the ruins of the Aztec capital.

According to Guilliem, the indigenous population buried in the grave either died in battle against the invading Spanish army or from diseases that killed large parts of the native population in 1545 and 1576. Millions notably perished in a four-year epidemic of hemorrhagic fever that broke out in 1545 killing 80% of the indigenous population. The discovery has also raised many questions that have yet to be answered.

The burial is particularly unusual because the positioning of the bodies suggests that they were buried following Christian traditions. It differs from previously discovered conquest-era graves, where the remains of Indians who died from epidemics were haphazardly thrown in pits, regardless of gender or age. The corpses were, however, buried with pre-Hispanic artefacts, such as copper necklaces and bone buttons, and some appear to have been wrapped in large cactus leaves rather than placed in European-style coffins. The graves also revealed evidence of Aztec style rituals in which incense or animals were burnt in an incense burner.

Guilliem has suggested that the burials may have been ordered by the Spanish but carried out by the indigenous population. Susan Gillespie, an archaeologist from the University of Florida, did not participate in the excavations, but questioned why the Spanish would have bothered with the careful burial of Aztec warriors. Moreover, if the burial was carried out by the indigenous population, the Indians would have been more likely to cremate any honored dead. Guilliem suggested that the Aztecs may have returned to bury their dead during the interim period, between the conquest of Tenochtitlan and its later reconstruction. Alternatively, the victims may have been held captive by the Spanish for some time before being killed later, as was the leader of the Aztec resistance, emperor Cuauhtémoc. It is also possible the bodies were those of disease victims or rebellious Indians from after 1521.

Guilliem explained that more research was needed and the skeletons analysed in order to determine the cause of their death. Scientists expect to uncover at least 50 more bodies as excavations continue at the site.

For more information, read our articles:
>> Aztec Warfare - Ross Hassig offers a reinterpretation of the culture of Aztec warfare, which may have been distorted by Spanish accounts in an attempt to justify the Spanish conquest
>> If Columbus Had Not Called – Brian Fagan reviews the state of the Aztec empire on the eve of the Spanish conquest questioning what would have happened if the conquistadores had not arrived. (The article includes a quote of Bernal Diaz’s description of Tenochtitlan).
>> Aztecs: A New Perspective – John M.D. Pohl reviews recent scholarship about the Aztec empire.

Spanish neutrality during WW2 a result of British bribes to Franco’s generals?

by Kathryn Hadley

A new book entitled Juan March: The Most Mysterious Man in the World by the historian Pere Ferrer has recently suggested that Churchill authorised millions of dollars in bribes to prevent Franco from entering the Second World War on Germany’s side. Based on his study of US and British archives, the author claims that Churchill accepted a plan suggested by the British officer Alan Hillgarth to bribe Franco’s generals, who would then persuade him not to enter the war.

Following reports that Franco and the Germans were planning an invasion of Gibraltar, Churchill was allegedly convinced, in the summer of 1940, that Spain was about to enter the war on the side of Hitler. Hillgarth argued, however, that Franco’s high command was corrupt and that the generals were not paid much and would consequently be open to bribery.

The Spanish banker, Juan March, was chosen for the job and made responsible for the organisation of payments to the generals. March had dealt in contraband tobacco during the First World War and made a fortune. He had also sided with Franco during the Spanish Civil War. It thus remains unclear as to whether or not he was a double agent. He may have stayed in pay with the Germans whilst working for the British.

The 10 million dollars bribe money was deposited in a bank in New York, but the US Treasury froze the account in the belief that the money was being used to help Hitler and the plan nearly collapsed. When the money was eventually released, however, the Spanish generals received between 3 and 5 million dollars in 1942 alone. In 1943 Spain declared complete neutrality; nevertheless, Franco did allow Hitler to use Spanish naval bases during the war and Italian planes refueled at Spanish airbases. Spain also helped the Germans to build observations posts around Gibraltar for German spies.

Moves towards official recognition of victims of Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship

by Kathryn Hadley

More than seventy years after the outbreak of the conflict, the cabinet of Zapatero announced last week plans for new legislation designed to offer official recognition and compensation to the victims of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship. The measures follow the promulgation eight months ago of the Ley de Memoria, the Law of Historical Memory.

The new laws will recognise those who were imprisoned, persecuted or executed as “victims” and grant their relatives the right to apply for a certificate of recognition. They may also grant up to 135,000 Euros (£100,000) compensation for those who were condemned by military courts between 1968 until Franco’s death in November 1975, as a result of alleged opposition to the dictatorship.

Moreover, the measures are said to include formal recognition of the role of foreign volunteers during the Civil War and will make it easier for the surviving members of the International Brigades to obtain Spanish nationality. (Less than 200, however, of the estimated 32,000 foreign volunteers who fought alongside the republicans are believed to still be alive).

The announcement represents a considerable step for the victims of the Civil War and the dictatorship, in the sense that it is the first document produced by the Spanish state to recognise the injustices suffered by those condemned under Franco and to argue for their necessary compensation.

Nevertheless, problems remain and further steps are yet to be taken. Most significantly, those unjustly condemned under Franco’s dictatorship demand the reversal of their convictions. This particular grievance is largely a result of a specificity of the Franco dictatorship: when Franco came to power, there was no official break with the previous regime. Consequently, any rulings passed under the dictatorship did not automatically become invalid following Franco’s death.

Moreover, the government has promised a map identifying the sites of the mass graves used during the dictatorship and little has been done to ensure the enforcement of article 15 of the Ley de Memoria, which stipulates that all symbols of the regime should be removed from town halls and churches.

The issue of compensation and recognition appears to remain caught in the web of local political convictions. In A Coruña, for example, the newly elected socialist government has rapidly begun to change churches and hospitals dedicated to members of the Falange; in Santander, however, where the centre-right Partido Popular is in power, statues of Franco still stand.