Pedrógão Grande, Leiria, Portugal, Jan. 3, 2025 (Lusa) - Portuguese researcher Aires Henriques brings back memories of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in a book that highlights the support and facilities granted by the Salazar dictatorship to the Francoist uprisings, he told the Lusa news agency.
In ‘Rumo a Madrid. Um diário da guerra santa" (‘Towards Madrid: A diary of the holy war’), the author, who has dedicated several works to the history of the opposition to the Salazar dictatorship Estado Novo regime, which was overthrown 50 years ago with the 25 April revolution, describes and analyses the events of the "fourth car convoy with donations for the Spanish nationalist insurgents".
The fourth of five expeditions organised by the Portuguese Radio Club (RCP), under the leadership of Captain Jorge Botelho Moniz, to aid the uprising of Francisco Franco's forces against the legitimate government of the Second Spanish Republic, the action took place just before Christmas 1936, leaving Portugal on 8 December and arriving in Madrid on the 16th.
Aires Barata Henriques, owner of the Museum of the Republic and Freemasonry in Pedrógão Grande, district of Leiria, said that the book takes as its starting point "an unpublished travel diary that a local man" wrote after taking part in the aforementioned convoy, made up of more than 400 lorries.
In Spain, in the areas dominated by the Francoists, "people were being massacred with political, material and logistical support from Salazar, the Italian fascists and the German Nazis", he told Lusa.
In an introduction entitled ‘’A memória como projeto editorial‘’ (Memory as an editorial project), Aires Henriques considers that the writing left by Alfredo Barros de Brito, an employee of the Almeirim Winegrowers Guild, is "a remarkable testimony, where facts and people of the most diverse sensibilities, culture, possessions and interests intersect, many of them victims of that press censorship and systematic disinformation".
Prefaced by historian Alberto Pena Rodriguez, a professor at the University of Vigo in Galicia, Spain, the book has just been published by Hora de Ler, based in Leiria.
"In parallel, then, with the wealthy farmers of Almeirim and Santarém, we will accompany the Iberian cause with the people of Leiria who, locally, have a press affected [by the Salazar regime]," explains the economist.
The press of the time, with local titles such as Correio da Extremadura e Portugal, respectively, at the departure and arrival of the district convoys, "never failed to support and praise the nationalist events and the warlike deeds of the fascist hosts", Aires Henriques points out.
"The war had political, social and economic consequences for Salazar's government, which acted as if the Spanish conflict were a national issue," recalls Alberto Pena Rodriguez.
In the preface, he emphasises that "the propaganda of the Estado Novo tried to spread the perception that the threat of Spanish 'communism', with its iberist ideas, put Portugal's very independence at risk".
In his opinion, the fourth expedition promoted by the Portuguese Radio Club (RCP) "was the most significant", bringing together 410 vehicles "that transported hundreds of tonnes of food from all the districts", bound for Madrid and Salamanca.
"The rebel army sponsored and celebrated the arrival of these convoys as a triumph, using them to legitimise its social policy and its military cause," stresses the professor at the University of Vigo.
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