National Defence Council

The National Defence Council was the governing body in Republican Spain at the end of the Spanish Civil War . The council seized power with Colonel Segismundo Casado’s coup on 5 March 1939 when it was clear that the Republicans had lost the war. The leaders hoped to negotiate an end to hostilities with the rebel forces led by General Francisco Franco. Franco insisted on unconditional surrender, and on 26 March 1939 launched the final offensive of the Spanish Civil War. By the end of the month he controlled the whole country. Most of the council members escaped into exile on British warships.
As early as May 1937, when Julián Besteiro of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party went to London to represent the Spanish Republic at the coronation of King George VI, president Manuel Azaña asked him to inquire if the British government would mediate in the civil war. Besteiro met Anthony Eden on 11 May 1937, but did not get any positive assurances. With the news of the fall of Barcelona on 26 January 1939, and Azaña's resignation as president, Besteiro decided to seek peace. Besteiro wanted to dissolve the Popular Front and replace it with a government that excluded communists, since he thought the policy of the Western democracies towards the civil war was determined by anti-communism rather than appeasement of Hitler and Mussolini. Besteiro contacted Colonel Segismundo Casado, commander of the Republican Army of the Center to discuss a coup.

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