Antonio Azarola y Gresillón

Antonio Azarola was born in Tafalla, Navarre in 1874. He belonged to a family of illustrious Spanish military men, part of which had emigrated to Uruguay. Along his early military career Azarola was named twice the adjutant of vice admiral Ricardo Fernández Gutiérrez de Celis, whose daughter, Carmen Fernández García-Zúñiga, he married. Azarola was a man of deep Christian convictions.^[3]

Azarola was second in command of the Ferrol Naval Base, the most important Spanish Navy base in northern Spain, since November 1934. He was also the commander of the Naval Arsenal.

Azarola was named undersecretary of the Naval Ministry of the Spanish Republic, Spanish: Ministerio de Marina, the bureaucratic body that governed the naval and merchant marine forces of Spain. He rose later to minister under the cabinet presided by Manuel Portela Valladares between 30 December 1935 and 19 February 1936, the last cabinet before the 1936 elections. What would be the last Naval Plan of the Spanish Republic was drawn up towards the end of his tenure in January 1936, before the Civil War. The plan envisaged the construction of two destroyers and two gunboats, as well as other minor vessels.^[4]

In the crucial hours that followed the July 1936 coup of rebel generals, Azarola made a conscious decision to remain loyal to the Spanish Republic. When the anti-republican officers at Ferrol invited Azarola to join the rebellion he declared that his Christian principles were paramount. As the highest leader of the naval base he admonished the rebel military officers, reminding them that their rebellion was tantamount to high treason, for they had made an oath of allegiance to the legally established government of Spain.^[5]

Baffled by a situation that he could only define as an act of treason, Rear-Admiral Azarola refused to open the doors of the Arsenal in order to arm the trade unions and leftist political parties, a measure which could have saved his life and could have spelled doom for the rebellion in that region. Finally he was arrested by rebel brothers Francisco and Salvador Moreno Fernández, navy officers who were lower in rank and who would be later praised as heroes by General Franco during his dictatorship. The Et tu, Brute? style words "Usted también, don Francisco" (meaning "You too don Francisco") spoken by Rear-Admiral Azarola at the moment of his arrest to Francisco Moreno, a former close friend of his and later admiral of the rebel fleet, have become famous.^[6]

Azarola was executed by firing squad at 6 am on 4 August against the inner wall of the Cuartel de Dolores barracks. His body was later buried at the Vilagarcía de Arousa graveyard. He was survived by his son Antonio Azarola Fernández de Celis.

Decades later Rear Admiral Azarola was included in the list of the victims of Francoism (Spanish: Listado de víctimas del franquismo) made by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón.^[7]

• Spanish Republican Navy
• Spanish coup of July 1936
• List of people executed by Francoist Spain
• Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory

• Bruno Alonso González, La flota republicana y la guerra civil de España, Ed. Renacimiento, México 1944 ISBN 84-96133-75-3
• José Cervera, Avatares de la guerra española en el mar, Editorial Noray, 2011, ISBN 978-84-7486-237-9
• Carlos Engel Masoliver, El Cuerpo de Oficiales en la guerra de España, Ed. Quirón, ISBN 978-84-96935075
• Javier García Fernández (coord.), 25 militares de la República; "El Ejército Popular de la República y sus mandos profesionales", Ed. Ministerio de Defensa, Madrid 2011

• Homage to Rear Admiral Azarola (with picture)
• Javier Fernández García, Comunidad El Pais
• Asturias Republicana - Muertes paralelas
• Charismatic judge who pursued Spain's fascist assassins finds himself on trial
• Comunidad El Pais - El Alzamiento del 36 en Galicia, Edicións do Castro, autor: Carlos Fernández Santander.
• Foro por la Memoria - Provincia de Cádiz