All language subtitles for BBC Blood and Gold - The Making of Spain 3 - Nation eng

In 1543, a father wrote
a secret letter of wise advice

for his teenage son.

"Always follow God's will,"
he wrote.

"Don't take decisions in anger,

"and don't have too much sex.
It can damage your health."

This was no ordinary father and son.

The father was Charles V,
Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain.

And the son, Philip II,
would be the champion of Catholicism,

the ruler of a world empire

and King of Spain at the very
apogee of its golden age.

Philip saw himself as more
than just a ruler.

There was no limit to his ambitions
for Catholicism and Spain.

He built this forbidding palace
as the projection

of his sacred mission.

San Lorenzo de El Escorial - the
headquarters of a king

who married one English queen

and sent an armada against another,

whose enduring legacy to Spain
is its capital, Madrid,

and on whose global empire
the sun never set.

For seven centuries,
Spain was a Roman province.

For another seven centuries,
it was Muslim.

Its reconquest in the name of
Christendom lasted 300 bloody years.

In this final episode,

I'll take you from Spain's
magnificent pinnacle under Philip II,

through its decline,
to its conquest by Napoleon,

its vicious civil war fought
over by Hitler and Stalin,

right up to General Franco's
dictatorship and today's democracy.

God, gold and glory,
beauty and death.

This is the story
of how Spain was made.

Philip II was born in 1527

in the city of Valladolid,
northern Spain.

His parents were Emperor Charles V
and Isabella of Portugal.

Though their empire
stretched across Europe and America,

they ruled on the move with no
permanent capital,

but they often stayed in Valladolid

in this small palace belonging
to the Pimentel family.

In 1527, in a small room upstairs,

Empress Isabella
endured 13 hours of labour.

When a kindly lady-in-waiting
suggested that she scream

to relieve the pain,
she replied regally,

"I shall not scream. I would rather
die than make any noise."

His mother died when he was 12.

His father was always away fighting.

He loved dancing, painting,
he loved flirting.

Yet, Philip's vision was clear.

He was God's vice-regent on Earth

in the service of the monarchy
and Catholicism.

In 1554, his father, the Emperor,
asked him to make a dutiful marriage

to gain yet another kingdom
for God and the Habsburgs.

It was England.

Philip's English bride
was Queen Mary,

the daughter of Henry VIII
and Catherine of Aragon.

She was nicknamed "Bloody Mary"

because of her fervent
execution of Protestant heretics.

For Spain and Catholicism
it was a favourable match.

The contract was negotiated
before the couple met

and Philip was disappointed
when they did.

She was squinty, pale, paunchy and
plain, and missing a few teeth,

but she was thrilled with her
gold-bearded young husband king.

Their wedding night was so energetic

that she spent four days
afterwards resting in bed.

She wept when Philip finally left
England for the Continent.

Philip, now King of England,
spent months there encouraging

Mary's restoration of Catholicism,

her persecution of the Protestants

and trying to father a Catholic heir.

Both knew that they needed a child
of this marriage who would then

inherit England.

Finally, she believed
that she was pregnant.

Her belly swelled, but tragically
it was a false pregnancy

and probably the beginning of the
cancer of the stomach

that later killed her.

Mary died in 1558.

According to their marriage contract,
Philip ceased to be King of England

and the throne passed
to Mary's half-sister,

the Protestant Elizabeth.

For Philip, England was
unfinished business.

Yet, his focus was already global.

He ruled Spain as regent
until in 1556 his father, Charles V,

gout-ridden and weary, abdicated.

At 29, Philip
became Philip II of Spain,

the Netherlands, Milan, Sicily,
Naples and the New World.

It was the greatest empire on Earth.

This burden lay heavy
on Philip's shoulders.

Yet, his ambitions were limitless.

He called himself the Prudent King,

and was determined to
rule in his own way.

I'm travelling a few miles
from Philip's birthplace

to the castle of Simancas.

Behind its ancient stone walls,

Philip preserved the means by which
a prudent king

should rule a great empire.

With paper.

Philip ruled from his desk.

As one chronicler wrote, "He could
make the world spin from his seat."

Today, Simancas houses 14 miles
of royal documents.

The archive director,
Julia Rodriguez de Diego,

has pulled out some
of Philip's personal papers.

They reveal his driving obsession
to control an empire so vast

that it might spin out of control
at any time.

It's truly awesome to be
here in the presence

of some actual letters of Philip II.

So, you know him so well.
What sort of man was he?

IN SPANISH

Philip also crossed things out in
these letters,

corrected spelling mistakes,

and in this case here,
he's actually cut out a section.

What's going on in this letter?

So what do you think this naughty
young priest had done?

Micromanagement was one way that
Philip kept a tight control

on the sinews of so many kingdoms.

In 1561, this sensible manager
saw that his government

needed a centre, just like other
monarchs in Europe.

Madrid...

..now a grand European city
and Spain's capital.

It's Philip's most enduring legacy

and for him,
a permanent seat of government.

Until Philip, the capital of Spain
had really been where the King was,

but now he decided
Madrid should be the capital,

a formal capital in the middle
of the country,

just as a heart
is located in the middle of the body.

At the time, Madrid was a provincial
backwater of narrow, squalid lanes.

Yet, for Philip, its very
insignificance was its strength.

Away from the vested interests of
conspiring grandees,

he would rule through his own
ministers.

This map is the first map ever
made of Madrid from 1656,

almost a century later.

I'm here in the Plaza Mayor.

Planned by Philip
and built by his son,

it's still right at the heart
of the Spanish capital.

Less than a century after the last of
the Islamic rulers

were driven out of Spain,

Philip possessed the political acumen
fit for the king of a golden age.

And now he wished to create a palace
that radiated his faith and power.

He chose a site at the foot
of the Guadarrama mountains,

north-west of Madrid.

And this is it -
San Lorenzo de El Escorial.

This place is called Philip's Seat,

and the king actually
used to come up here

and oversee the construction
of his beloved Escorial.

He wanted it to be
the eighth Wonder of the World,

and, being Philip,
he micromanaged every detail,

writing hundreds of memos
to his poor architects.

In one case, he started to worry
about where the lavatories would be.

"I wonder if bad smells will
emanate from these holes,"

he wrote to the architect.

"Are they too close to the kitchens?
Send me the plans again."

For Philip, the Devil was in the
details, God even more so.

El Escorial was simultaneously
political headquarters,

dynastic mausoleum, personal library

and cathedral monastery,

its design a vast gridiron,
to commemorate the one

on which Philip's favourite saint,
San Lorenzo, was martyred,

its splendour
to emulate the Temple of Solomon.

Its magnificence embodies
Philip's role

as champion of Catholicism on Earth.

"God's work and mine,"
he said, "are the same thing."

If there's one building
that came to symbolise

the glory of Imperial Spain,
it's this one.

Philip II's Hall of Battles really
gives you an idea of his world-view,

his need for magnificence, his
Catholic mission.

Looking at this, you get a grasp
of how Philip saw himself

and how he saw the world.

Although he only saw battle once,
as a young prince,

Philip was a supreme warlord,
commanding the best armies in Europe.

In his 42-year reign, there was just
six months of peace.

Now the empire reached
its greatest extent,

including the Philippines,
named after him,

and through his mother, he added
Portugal and its far-flung empire.

This painting here in the
Hall of Battles shows his fleet

taking the Portuguese Azores.

He now had 50 million
citizens under his control.

Truly, one could say, that
"Non sufficit orbis," his motto -

a world is not enough.

As his armies marched
across the globe

he committed himself to
war on several fronts.

His first duty was to fight
the infidel.

In 1571,
Philip put together a holy alliance,

which annihilated the Ottoman
fleet in the Battle of Lepanto.

Yet, the biggest threat didn't
come from Islam.

It came from within
Christendom itself...

..the tide of Protestantism
sweeping Europe.

The greatest crisis, the weeping
sore of his entire reign,

was the revolt
of the Protestant Dutch.

He tried to crush them

but everything failed
and the revolt went on.

Ultimately, the war against the
Dutch Protestants would lead

to a greater war against England.

In the island kingdom where
he'd once been king,

Queen Elizabeth defiantly
undid all Mary's work.

She promoted Protestantism
in growing opposition to Philip.

She funded his rebellious Protestant
subjects in the Low Countries.

Her ships plundered
Spanish colonies and fleets.

Philip had suggested marrying
Elizabeth of England

but now he decided to kill her.

He declared her a tyrant and ordered
her assassination or capture

and her replacement by her Catholic
cousin, Mary Queen of Scots.

For almost 20 years he planned to
send an armada, a fleet,

to conquer England, and then
in 1587 his mind was made up.

Elizabeth executed Mary.
That was the last straw.

Now Philip excitedly ordered
the building and provisioning

of the greatest fleet in history.

His secretary noted, "I've never
seen the King so animated

"by any other piece of business."

And this is the desk
where the Prudent King

came up with his reckless master plan
to conquer Protestant England.

He ordered that the Duke of Medina
Sidonia would sail from Spain

with 130 ships, 20,000 men,
along the English Channel

and join up with
the 30,000 men of the Duke of Parma,

waiting at Dunkirk
in the Low Countries.

Both commanders hated this plan.

How on Earth would you coordinate
the two forces joining hands

at the mercy of the hostile
English Navy?

But Philip swept aside all
objections.

"Human prudence may suggest
uncertainties," he said,

"but God will remove them. After
all," he added, "I do God's work."

As Spain waited, the royal family
knelt in prayer, night and day.

By 6th August 1588, Medina Sidonia

and the armada
were moored off Calais.

At the same time, the Duke of Parma
and his men

were embarked on ships at Dunkirk,

but fatally and predictably the
message hadn't reached him in time.

It was too late
and the armada were sitting ducks.

Many of them
were attacked by English ships.

GUNFIRE

A storm scattered them
and some of them had to sail

all the way around Scotland
and Ireland to get back to Spain.

It was disaster. A third of the ships
never made it home.

15,000 men died.

God had not smiled on Philip's
divine enterprise.

After the failure of the armada,
Philip's health deteriorated.

The man in black retreated
to his rooms,

exhausting himself on his paperwork,
while devoting himself to prayer.

As he lay here, priests would
bring in his beloved relics

and lay them on his aching limbs
and open sores.

As he sunk into unconsciousness,

the only way his daughter
had to rouse him

was to pretend that someone was near
those relics and might touch them.

"Don't touch the relics," she'd say,
and he'd suddenly wake up.

But people in the kingdom
started to say,

"If the King of Spain doesn't
die soon, the kingdom will."

And finally, on 13th September 1598,
he did.

As he took his final breath, the
choristers were singing Morning Mass

in the monumental
basilica next to his bedroom.

Philip II left the monarchy
still at the zenith of its power,

the achievement of a ruler
of impressive diligence and acumen.

There were failures, like the armada,
yet, after Philip,

every Spanish ruler would try to
emulate his greatness.

The challenge now was
for Philip's heirs to maintain

the power of this expensive empire,

an empire so vast, even the gold
of the Americas couldn't cover it.

It was constantly
teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

And there was another problem.

In 1621,
Philip IV inherited the throne.

He was 16 but he lacked the talent
to rule in his own right.

Instead, he needed to choose
a trusted courtier to rule for him.

These favourites were called
the validos.

The validos were hated
for their power and corruption.

They were compared to mushrooms
that grew up suddenly overnight

out of a bed of excrement.

But the greatest of them all was
Gaspar de Guzman,

the Count of Olivares.

Olivares knew that to rule Spain
he needed to rule Philip IV.

I've come to
the Prado Museum in Madrid

to find out about Philip
and his favourite,

through the work of THE court
painter of the day, Diego Velazquez.

Here's Philip IV painted
astride a rearing horse.

More than anything, he wanted to be
seen as a soldier king,

though his real hobbies were hunting
duck and chasing actresses.

Velazquez's assessment of the young
Philip was that he

"mistrusts himself,
and defers to others too much".

But when you look at his face
in this portrait,

there's something in the eye,
something in the face

that shows how nervous he was.

He wanted to be a great king
but he wasn't quite sure how.

Right next to Velazquez's
Philip IV

is his portrait
of the Count-Duke of Olivares.

The compositions complement
each other, yet here the eyes betray

no hint of doubt.

On Philip's accession to the
throne,

Olivares declared,
"Now everything is mine."

This is the man who taught Philip IV
how to be a great king.

He was larger than life, swaggering,
flamboyant, neurotic,

hypochondriacal, hysterical,
explosive,

but also brilliant. He was eccentric.

He wandered the corridors of power
late into the night

with documents stuffed into his hat,
his pockets, even his boots.

But he was a supreme courtier too.

Once, when a young Philip
was annoyed with him

and shouted that he was sick of him,

Olivares simply kissed the brimming
royal chamber pot and withdrew.

He would take the young
king on boisterous male escapades

in the backstreets of Madrid,

but really Olivares was
all about business.

This is how he saw himself,

international strategist

and supreme commander
of the greatest power on Earth.

Olivares was in power for just two
years before his statesmanship

was dramatically tested by the
arrival of visitors from London.

It was the start of one
of the strangest diplomatic crises

in European history.

On 17th March 1623,
there was a knock at the door

of the British Ambassador's
residence in Madrid.

KNOCKS ON DOOR

An Englishman, who
gave his name as Mr Thomas Smith,

insisted on speaking to the
ambassador in person.

On the other side of the street,
another figure lurked in the shadows.

When the ambassador came down,
he was amazed to discover

that Tom Smith was none other than

the Marquis of Buckingham, King
James I's minister and favourite,

and John Smith,
hiding across the road,

was Charles, the Prince of Wales.

Both were in full disguise
and wearing false beards.

This absurd, reckless escapade

was the culmination
of years of negotiations

for Protestant Charles to marry
the Catholic infanta, Mariana,

hugely complicated by the outbreak
of the Thirty Years' War

between Europe's Catholics
and Protestants.

Charles and Buckingham
were playing with fire.

These vain popinjays, on a romantic
adventure, had placed themselves

in the power of the ruthless
Count Olivares,

who, like everyone else in Madrid,

expected that Charles
would never have travelled

halfway across Europe if he was not
willing to convert to Catholicism.

These shenanigans would infuriate
Olivares, bewilder Philip

and reduce Charles' father, James I,
to senile weeping for his wee boys.

Prince Charles regarded
himself as a chevalier in pursuit

of his passionate prey, the infanta.

Olivares finally allowed him to see
her in a carriage,

and there he thought her maidenly
ardour was expressed

in little blushes that he thought
he saw on her face.

In fact, the infanta had no
intention of marrying a heretic,

a Protestant.

Olivares appreciated these
perilous complexities.

Unless he could win
the prize of a Catholic England,

he was determined to derail
the match.

He now demanded that all
Catholics in England be liberated,

their rights restored,

and this was much more than
Buckingham and Charles

could ever deliver.

Soon the negotiations became
dangerously fraught.

The two favourites, Buckingham and
Olivares, hated each other,

insulted each other, and soon they
were at daggers drawn.

Charles found himself a prisoner
in Spain for over six months.

He only got away by pretending to
agree to Olivares' terms.

Charles didn't get his bride.

Olivares was now more
trusted by Philip IV than ever.

Olivares could now launch his master
plan, which was, in his words,

"to resuscitate
Your Majesty's monarchy".

This popular Madrid park was
the setting

for a great pleasure palace
built by Olivares.

There are few vestiges of the
colossal Buen Retiro Palace itself

but this was the spectacular
expression of Olivares' dream

of a resurgent Spain.

I'm about to see its
forgotten throne room.

There are no tourists here.

It's all that remains of Olivares'
mission to glorify the monarchy

and its young king.

This is it - the Hall of the Kingdoms
in all its faded grandeur.

Here, on these walls,

Olivares celebrated the far-flung
territories of his king...

..each name a story from the annals
of Spanish history.

There is Granada.

There is Milan, for example,
and Naples.

There is Flanders, the Low Countries.

There is Sicily, Peru,
Mexico, Portugal.

This was the Spanish Empire
in its late, great phase.

Olivares' ambition was to unite
these kingdoms

in a military Union of Arms
to fund the empire and its wars.

Yet, his vision of Spanish
greatness meant entering

the devastating Thirty Years' War.

As an overstretched monarchy began
losing the war,

Olivares' scheme didn't unite Spain.

It brought it to the verge
of destruction.

The Portuguese rebelled.
Catalonia rebelled.

Olivares' dream,
Olivares' gamble had failed.

He was finished.

After over 20 years in power,
Olivares' enemies were circling.

Finally, Philip IV had to break up

their strange father-son
relationship.

In January 1643,
he dismissed the valido.

Olivares, obese and neurotic,

went almost mad
with bitterness and regret.

The Inquisition started to
investigate him.

He was close to being arrested
and possibly executed,

but he died aged 58 before that
could happen.

King Philip was finally a man

but the Spanish Empire
was now a wounded giant.

And, after over a century of rule,

the Spanish Habsburg dynasty
was in trouble.

It was not merely
the hubris of empire.

Its nemesis came from within.

San Lorenzo de El Escoria
celebrated the Habsburgs'

elevated view of their own
peerless royalty.

But now the dynasty would perish

precisely because
of that haughty pride.

Down these steps, deep under
the altar of the basilica,

is the sacred Pantheon of Kings,

the final resting
place of the monarchs of Spain.

I come to find the tomb of the
last of the Spanish Habsburgs.

Philip's son, Charles,
known as "the Bewitched"

because of his grotesque appearance,

including a jaw so huge
that he could barely eat.

His plight was the result of
generations of family intermarriage.

The Habsburgs were made
by marriage, and destroyed by it.

I'm meeting geneticist
Professor Gonzalo Alvarez.

He's made an analysis of Habsburg
intermarriage across 16 generations

and its fatal effect
on the bloodline.

The most famous characteristic
of the Habsburg family

was the Habsburg jaw.

Was this the result
of their notorious interbreeding?

IN SPANISH

So what were
the mental and physical effects

on poor Charles II of interbreeding?

How closely related were his parents?

When Charles II finally died,
his autopsy made pitiful reading.

His brain was full of water,
his veins had no blood,

and his single testicle
resembled a black coal.

With two possible cousins as his
heir, one Austrian, one French,

Charles chose the French.

That plunged Europe into
the War of Spanish Succession,

which put a new dynasty on the
Spanish throne -

the Bourbons of France.

They brought French Enlightenment
and a more informal style,

and for the first time they united
the separate kingdoms into one

Kingdom of Spain.

In 1789, the French Revolution

overthrew their Bourbon cousins
in Paris.

As the monarchs of Europe tried to
suppress the revolution,

Spain needed a strong monarch.

Unfortunately,
the king was Charles IV,

nicknamed "the Hunter"
because he did very little else.

It was the Queen, Maria Luisa,
who was the real ruler of Spain.

And the man she wanted at her side
was not the King.

He was an ambitious young upstart,
a handsome royal guardsman,

Manuel Godoy.

Godoy almost certainly became
the queen's lover,

and at the age of 25,
she appointed him Chief Minister.

Spain was now ruled
by a menage a trois.

The Queen herself proudly referred
to it as "the Earthly Trinity".

It was certainly earthly.

The menage a trois
was more of a foursome,

because Godoy's favourite mistress
was Pepita,

whom he had painted twice by Goya.

He was very proud of her

but he was even more keen to show
her at her best,

and he would show this portrait
in a tiny private room.

He would pull a curtain

to reveal Pepita
in all her dazzling sensuality.

Godoy wasn't just juggling
powerful women.

First, he backed
the monarchies of Europe

as they tried to crush
revolutionary France,

and then he joined France in a plan
to conquer England's ally, Portugal.

This is the residence of Godoy.

He revelled in his splendour,
but his timing was unfortunate.

It happened that he coincided
with the greatest soldier statesman

of all European history,
Napoleon Bonaparte.

In 1808, Godoy and Napoleon
agreed to cooperate

in the carve-up
of the Kingdom of Portugal,

but when the French troops
arrived in Madrid, they never left.

100,000 French troops
poured into Spain.

Godoy, his king, his queen
and mistress had to flee.

But rumours spread that the rest
of the royal family

were about to be murdered.

On May 2nd 1808, a mob gathered here
outside the Royal Palace.

A locksmith named Jose broke in
and appeared on the balcony.

"Death to the French," he cried.

"They've already stolen our royal
family - our king and our queen.

"Now they wish to take
the rest of them to Paris!"

The mob went crazy.

They turned on the French troops,
pelting them with rocks,

pouring boiling water on them from
the rooftops, and all hell let loose.

The French opened fire randomly
on the crowds. Hundreds were killed.

French and Spanish blood
ran in the gutters of Madrid.

The French general ordered immediate
and ruthless reprisals.

Men were rounded up almost at random,
a gardener, a singer, even a priest.

As they were marched
through the streets,

some builders on a scaffolding
threw rocks at the French troops.

They too were arrested
and added to the party.

The next day, the 3rd of May, all 43
men were executed by firing squad.

GUNFIRE

Their deaths were immortalized
by Goya

in his famous painting
The Third of May 1808.

Under the incongruous shadow
of cable cars,

in the tiny cemetery of La Florida
in Madrid, they lie buried,

43 ordinary men who stood up for
Spain's national pride.

Their actions were glorious,
yet futile...

..as Spain became a mere
province of the French Empire.

Napoleon forced the Bourbon
royal family to abdicate

and he appointed his own brother,
Joseph, as King of Spain.

Emperor Napoleon came here himself
to defeat the Spanish army.

But the Spanish people rose
up against the French.

They launched the first
guerrilla war.

The word itself, "guerrilla",
comes from this conflict.

As Napoleon's brother, King Joseph,
tried to rule from the Royal Palace,

Spain got help from the old enemy.

Britain sent Sir Arthur Wellesley,
its best general.

He defeated the French, earning
the title the Duke of Wellington.

He drove King Joseph Bonaparte
out of Madrid

and in 1814 invaded France,
contributing to Napoleon's downfall.

Spain was left weakened and divided.

A liberal constitution,
promising democracy,

delighted half the country,

but the other half preferred
Catholic absolutism.

Spain was tortured by these
conflicting visions

and a humiliating
international decline.

Professor Jose Alvarez Junco is
an expert on the 19th century.

One of the biggest
effects of the Napoleonic Wars

was not in Spain but was abroad.
What happened to the Spanish Empire?

Between 1810 and 1825,

90% of the American Empire declared
its independence from Spain.

The Spaniards lived on a fantasy,

that they were still
an imperial power

because they kept Cuba and Filipinas
and Puerto Rico

but in 1898,
they finally lost that also.

What was the effect on Spain
itself of this loss of empire?

The effect was enormous, tremendous.

Spain had been a big power between,
let's say, 1500 and 1800,

between the Catholic kings
and the Napoleonic Wars,

and they suddenly realised

that they were not a great power,
they were not a "superior race".

What was the effect of the struggles
and wars of the 19th century?

There were constant military coups.
There were civil wars,

the socioeconomic inequality,
particularly in the rural world.

Another was the Catholic
Church in Spain was widely hated.

It was disastrous, and that led,
for instance,

to the impossibility
to have common symbols.

The Spanish national anthem has no
words. We don't agree.

Conservatives would like to sing the
glories of the Spanish Empire

and the defence of Catholicism,

and liberals, or lefties, would like
to sing the defence of freedoms.

So, in the end, there are no words.

Sometimes, funny things
have happened.

For instance, players
of the national soccer team,

when they have won a championship
and the music has begun,

they sing things without
any meaning. For instance...

TUNE OF SPANISH NATION ANTHEM:
# Choon-da, choon-da

# Ta choon-da, choon-da, choon-da
Choon-da, choon, choon, choon... #

Because they need to sing something.

That's extraordinary.
That's totally extraordinary.

Early in the 20th century, Spain
managed to stay out of World War I.

Yet, economic depression
reinforced its schisms,

and the hapless King Alfonso XII

was discredited when he appointed
a general as dictator.

In 1931, he was deposed.
Spain was a republic

and after 200 years,
the Bourbons went into exile.

The Republic was the first
time in Spanish history

that the country had been ruled
by a leftist, moderate government

elected in a true democracy,

and it brought in many progressive
measures - votes for women,

workers' rights and water
in working-class districts,

like this fountain here that still
bears the date 1934

and the Spanish Republic.

Yet, the right, from landowners
to industrialists,

believed that the Republic was a
communist conspiracy

to destroy traditional
Spanish values.

Its anti-Catholic measures proved
to its enemies,

the generals, the Church and the
growing fascist militias,

that it was an anathema.

They were determined to stop it.

In 1936, the Socialists won
elections that were the last straw.

Tit-for-tat killings by leftist
and fascist death squads

meant the generals had an excuse.

They reached for their guns.

The Republic was doomed.

The generals planned
a nationalist coup.

Among them was the 43-year-old
commander of the Canary Islands,

a Spanish outpost 1,000 miles away.

He emerged as their leader.

He was extremely uncharismatic.

He was a dreary, notoriously bad
speaker, with a high, womanly voice.

He was paunchy, small and balding,
but he was not all he seemed.

Francisco Franco had been Europe's
youngest general since Napoleon.

He'd made his name as the brutal
commander in the colonial war

in Morocco, where even
his Moroccan troops

regarded his bloodthirstiness
with reverence.

He loathed socialists,
Marxists, Masons, Jews,

and believed they should be
annihilated like aliens.

Above all, he possessed
the will to power.

But for now, he watched and waited.

His time had almost come.

In July 1936, Franco left the
Canary Islands

for Spanish Morocco in North Africa.

He planned to deploy his devoted
Moroccan Legion

to crush the Republic.

Yet, he lacked transport to
get his legionaries across

to mainland Spain.

He appealed to the fascist dictators
Hitler and Mussolini.

They saw a way to promote
fascist power.

Hitler sent the planes
and, ever the fan of Wagner,

he named this operation
Operation Magic Fire.

MUSIC: Magic Fire Music by
Richard Wagner

While Britain and France
chose to remain neutral,

the extreme ideologies of the 20th
century, fascism and communism,

began a war of annihilation
and a tournament of power

in the bloody bullring of Spain.

LOUD EXPLOSION

As Franco marched north,
the killing started all over Spain.

20,000 were executed in the first
days of the coup.

Franco's nationalist forces
headed for the capital.

It would have fallen.

Instead, Franco diverted troops
to Toledo,

once the capital of Visigothic Spain,
which was under siege.

GUNFIRE

He was making a point.

In 1085, King Alfonso VI had taken
the Muslim city of Toledo

to launch the Christian
reconquest of Spain.

Franco felt that he was doing
the same thing.

Now he declared, "This is not
a civil war. This is a holy war.

"We are the soldiers of God."

The Church blessed Franco's cause
and portrayed him

as the saviour of Spain.

In November 1935,

after taking Toledo, Franco's
crusaders broke into the capital.

The Nationalist rebel forces,

spearheaded by their battle-hardened
Moroccan legionaries,

fought their way right into the
centre of Madrid,

right to these university buildings.

These bullet holes
tell their own story.

RAPID GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

The fighting was ferocious.

GUNFIRE

The Republic desperately
needed arms and men.

The arms came from Stalin
in Soviet Russia

and the men came in the form
of the International Brigades,

who rushed here, individual
volunteers from all over the world,

united in the fight to stop fascism.

Madrid held out for three years,

the ultimate
symbol of Republican resistance.

Franco fought on, now backed by
80,000 troops sent by Mussolini

and Hitler's Nazi Condor Legion,

which invented terror bombing
and devastated Guernica.

LOUD EXPLOSIONS

Sensing that this was a rehearsal
for the coming World War,

writers poured in
to cover the agony of Spain.

It caught the imagination
of a generation.

The most famous of them all
was Ernest Hemingway,

and he was a regular at this bar.

He used to sit right over there.

"It was full of smoke," he wrote,
"singing men in uniform

"and the smell of wet leather coats.
And they were handing out drinks

"over a crowd that were
three-deep at the bar."

Hemingway saw this
as a war against fascism

and he helped publicise the desperate
glamour of the Republican side.

His novel For Whom The Bell Tolls

is one of the great war novels
of all time,

and it captures the folly,
the heroism

and the sheer chaos
of the Republican side.

It's still a timeless read

and some of the romanticism
that is attributed

to this most vicious of conflicts

is down to Hemingway's masterpiece.

The reality was savage.

For an unglamorised version,

I've driven 200 miles to the
site of one of its bloody battles.

Belchite in Zaragoza -

a ghost town left exactly as it
was at the end of the Civil War.

It's still haunted by the atrocities
perpetrated by both sides.

For the Republican side,

the greatest symbol
of hatred was the Church.

This is just one of the many
they destroyed,

and across Spain they exhumed the
bodies of nuns and priests,

mocked them
and exposed them to public view.

But much worse, they also
killed 13 bishops and 6,000 clergy

in what became known as "the greatest
clerical blood-letting in history".

Altogether, the Republicans
killed 55,000 people.

Republican death squads,
often led by communists,

organised mass killings.

The Nationalists were better
organised in every way.

"I will occupy Spain," said Franco,
"town by town, village by village."

Half of the Spanish people
were to be treated as aliens

and annihilated on sight.

Anyone suspected of socialism,
atheism, liberalism,

communism were hunted down by
right-wing death squads and executed.

Altogether, during the war,

200,000 people were
murdered by the Nationalists.

In March 1939, the Republicans
finally disintegrated.

Franco marched into Madrid
and declared total victory.

In the next five years,
he ordered further killings,

an estimated 200,000 people,
executed as enemies of Spain.

There was no reconciliation.
There were no pardons.

With his regime secured,

Franco was keen to promote his place
in Spain's imperial history.

On the first anniversary
of the Nationalist victory

he announced the plan to
build a monument

to those who fell for the cause.

He chose this valley -
we're just coming into sight now -

because right next door,
just over there, is the Escorial,

the magnificent palace monastery
of Spain's greatest king, Philip II.

You can see exactly
the way his mind was working.

Franco saw himself as among the
great, heroic conqueror kings

of Spain's history.

Dominated by its 500-foot
Holy Cross,

the Valley of the Fallen
encapsulates Franco's Spain,

a strange mix of Catholic,
imperial and conservative,

fascist and nationalist...

..Christian symbolism
infused with fascistic imagery.

"Such are the dimensions of our
crusade," said Franco,

"that we cannot commemorate this with
simple monuments.

"We must raise stones
that resemble the grandeur

"of the monuments of old
that defy time."

Well, whatever we think of Franco,

we must say,

he succeeded at least in that.

As Europe plunged
into the Second World War,

Franco identified
with Hitler and Mussolini.

He called himself "El Caudillo" -
the leader, the warlord -

to match the Fuhrer and the Duce.

He felt he was on history's
winning side

and he didn't want to miss out
on the prizes.

Yet, Spain was weak and ruined.

By 1940, Europe shook with
the triumphs of Hitler's blitzkrieg.

Franco wanted to emulate the style,
the ideology and the conquests

of Hitler and Mussolini,
his brother fascist dictators.

He created an anti-Semitic
fascistic party, and he declared,

"We have conquered the scum of the
communist-Masonic-Jewish conspiracy."

He wanted to create
a new Spanish Empire

but only Hitler could give it to him.

After German forces had conquered
even France,

Franco wanted to join the war,
but he had his price.

On 23rd October 1940, Franco and
Hitler

met at Hendaye Railway Station,

near the Spanish border in France,
to discuss terms.

It started well.
"Delighted to see you, Fuhrer."

"Finally, an old wish of mine
fulfilled, Caudillo."

And then they repaired to Hitler's
train, Erika, to begin the talks.

Franco started to demand a long
shopping list

of imperial territories
he wanted for Spain.

Gibraltar and Portugal, of course,
but also bits of French Catalonia,

French Morocco,
swaths of Algeria and West Africa.

Hitler was outraged.
He despised Franco.

He said that Franco's whining voice
resembled the muezzin,

the Muslim call to prayer.

He called him a "Jesuitical swine".

He lost his temper.

He treated Franco to one of his
foam-flecked rants.

He stood up to end the talks
but was persuaded to return.

But it didn't end well.

He said he'd prefer to endure three
or four teeth being pulled out

than to spend another minute
with Franco.

Spain didn't get its empire.

Germany didn't need Spanish help.

Franco stayed neutral.

But when Hitler fell, he adapted,

swiftly dropping his fascist style,

embracing a Catholic
authoritarianism.

For over 30 years, he lived
here at the El Pardo Palace.

His name appeared
on stamps and coins.

He was protected by
a Moroccan bodyguard.

He could even appoint
people to titles

and gave away dukedoms
and marquises.

He was king in all but name.

He never actually abolished
the monarchy.

His plan was to restore the Bourbons
after his death

in a new hybrid regime,
a Francoist monarchy.

In the '40s, he allowed the young
Prince Juan Carlos

to return to be educated in Spain.

In 1969,
he finally announced his decision.

He would be succeeded by Juan Carlos
as king on his own death.

But, while he thought
he was playing the prince,

the prince was also
playing the old dictator.

BELL TOLLS

As he planned the succession,
Franco knew where he would be buried,

at the Valley of the Fallen,
within the giant basilica

like a warrior king.

It really is an extraordinary place.

It's impossible not to be
impressed by it,

but also horrified.

It's pervaded by death.

I feel I've entered a
sacred political theatre

orchestrated by Franco himself
from beyond the grave.

On 20th November 1975, aged 82,

the last dictator of the '30s died.

BELL TOLLS

Was this the requiem
for the age of dictators,

or the overture
for an enduring tyranny?

When the lights went out,
and the bells rang

and the choir sung,

I wouldn't have been surprised if the
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

had clattered into the hall.

Two days after Franco's death,
the young Bourbon, Juan Carlos,

took the oath as King of Spain.

He never intended to be
the figurehead for the Francoists,

and after 40 years of tyranny,

the nation was hungry
for freedom and democracy.

The young king immediately started
to move towards a new Spain.

He oversaw the dismantling
of the dictatorship

and the creation of parliamentary
democracy

without a drop of blood being spilt.

Within 18 months,

Spain held its first democratic
elections in 41 years.

Today, democracy is established.
Spanish society is diverse.

Spain has offered citizenship to the
descendants of Jews expelled in 1492.

It was the third country in the
world to allow same-sex marriages.

Catholicism still has its place,
yet no longer dominates the state.

For many millennia,
Spain has been the borderland,

the crossroads, the battlefield
of empires, faiths and peoples.

Its extreme position at the edge
of Europe has intensified

the extremity of its rages,
its furies, its conflicts.

Carthaginians versus Romans,

Muslims versus Christians,

Catholics versus Protestants,

fascists versus communists.

Spain has always been,
throughout history,

the cauldron of civilisations,
the furnace of faiths.

Today, the scars of
civil war are still raw.

Juan Carlos abdicated.

His son is now king
and regionalism remains strong.

Blood and gold,
from the caliphate to the kingdom,

this is the story
of how Spain was made.

If this story has inspired you and
you'd like to find out more,

go to the address given on-screen

and follow the links
to the Open University.