Chicago Tribune/May 19, 1939
130,000 Troops Parade in Victory Review.
Hundreds of thousands waited in fiesta mood tonight for Gen. Francisco Franco’s triumphant entry into this traditional capital of Spain tomorrow, symbolizing establishment of Spain’s new nationalist order. Franco is to enter the city by automobile through streets strewn with olive branches—symbols of Spain’s peaceful intentions toward all nations.
[Other dispatches said Gen. Franco had entered Madrid yesterday, but that he had remained in comparative seclusion awaiting the parade today to make his first public appearance.]
The day will be a national holiday and it may prove a landmark in the new regime’s course. In one of the mightiest military demonstrations in Spanish history, Italian and German soldiers who served the Nationalists will parade for the last time in Spain.
An estimated 12,000 Italians will sail soon for home from Cadiz and Alicante. Between 5,000 and 6,000 Germans are to sail from Vigo. Also in a speech—after the parade—Franco is expected to tell the world of Spain’s future foreign policies and announce his program for Spanish reconstruction.
Soldiers to Become Workmen
Hundreds of thousands of his soldiers, to be demobilized after the victory celebration, are expected to be assigned to reconstruction tasks and employed in industries which have returned to peaceful manufactures after supplying armaments for more than two years.
The generalissimo will receive the Grand Cross Laureada from high army officers tomorrow at the Victoria tribune before he reviews about 130,000 of his troops. Besides a bodyguard of Spanish war heroes. Franco will have with him high Italian and German officials members of the diplomatic corps in Spain and his staff of military and naval chiefs H. F. Matthews, American charge d’affaires, arrived last night.
Between 700 and 1,000 airplanes will maneuver over the city. Many will be flown by Italians and Germans.
Shoot Eight Socialists
Eight leaders of a Socialist youth organization, Juventud Socialists Unificada, died before the firing squad today. They were accused of assassinations while Madrid was in Republican hands during the civil war.
In San Sebastian it was announced that the city council had ordered the palace of Miramar and all other former personal property of the Spanish royal family returned to former King Alfonso XIII. The council’s action was the first to give effect to Gen. Franco’s recent decree returning to the ex-sovereign all properties he held in Spain before the proclamation of the republic in 1931.
(Source: Chicago Tribune Archives, http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1939/05/19/page/18/article/franco-enters-excited-madrid-in-glory-today)
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