Although nominally the Falangist leader in Santander, Hedilla was based in A Coruña when the northern uprising began. He thus took charge of securing this city and was responsible for the bloody repressions. Despite this Hedilla, who was on the left wing of the Falange and emphasized the proletarian and syndicalist nature of the movement soon became a critic of the indiscriminate violence being perpetrated by the Nationalists. Following the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera Hedilla was nominated as his successor but he was soon at the center of a power struggle between himself and the legitimistas led by Agustín Aznar and Sancho Dávila y Fernández de Celis. Hedilla's pro-social reform position won the support of the German ambassador General Wilhelm Faupel and, although Hedilla was not directly involved, his followers took the initiative in Salamanca on April 16th 1937 by attempting to wrest control of the Falangist headquarters from rightist leader Sancho Dávila.

In the aftermath of the event Hedilla secured his own leadership of the Falange two days later although his triumph was short lived as Franco checked his power by immediately announcing the formation of the Spanish Traditionalist Phalanx of the Assemblies of National - Syndicalist Offensive as a grand party of all his followers, including Hedilla's followers. Problems were escalated when Hedilla's close ally José Sáinz Nothnagel sent a telegram to Falangist leaders telling them to ignore all merger orders apart from those delivered 'through proper hierarchical channels'. Whilst the message was vague as to whom the proper channels actually meant it was taken by Franco and his supporters to be a warning that only Hedilla should be obeyed and thus increased tension. Believing that his power would be increased by maintaining Falangist independence, Hedilla refused to join the council of the new movement. However he overestimated his power and was arrested on April 25th and sentenced to death the following month. However, on the advice of Ramón Serrano Súñer, who feared losing the Falange, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and ultimately Hedilla would only serve four years. Mindful of the need to keep the Falangists onside, Franco appointed another 'Old Shirt', Raimundo Fernández - Cuesta, as leader of the Movement.

A controversial episode grew up near the end of his life when Hedilla hired pro - Falange journalist Maximiano Garcia Venero to write his memoirs. The volume that they produced gave a somewhat critical interpretation of Franco during the civil war and, under pressure from the government, Hedilla decided against publishing. Garcia Venero then sought to have the volume published outside Spain by the leftist Ruedo Ibérico, a publisher controlled by the Frente Revolucionario Antifascista y Patriótico and the book appeared in 1967 under the title La Falange en la guerra de España: la Unificación y Hedilla. However given that the publisher was avowedly left wing a companion volume by Herbert R. Southworth, highly critical of Hedilla, appeared simultaneously. Garcia Venero and his subject fell out over the issue with Hedilla bringing a lawsuit and the writer publishing a new book in Spain in 1970 that was much more critical of Hedilla. By 1972 Hedilla's heirs, who gained ownership of the original manuscripts in the court case, were allowed to publish it and other writings under the title Testamento politico de Manuel Hedilla.

Educated at a seminary for Catholic Priests, he ran away and enlisted in the Spanish Army as an gunner. He later entered the Royal Cavalry Academy of Valladolid as a cadet, fought in Cuba (during the Spanish - American War) and then in the Rif War as a cavalry officer.

On 4 October 1901 he married Genoveva Martí y Tovar, by whom he had two children, Gonzalo and Ernestina, deceased 2001, later on the wife of his enemy and President of the II Spanish Republic, Niceto Alcalá - Zamora.

Queipo de Llano, a second lieutenant at Cuba in 1896, became a Captain at 1898, was a commandant in 1911 on returning from Argentina after a 10 - month spell there, 1910 – 1911, serving in North Africa at Melilla as a Colonial Officer afterward and attaining the rank of brigadier general, April 1923, being apparently enthusiastic with the military coup d'etat staged by General Miguel Primo de Ribera, 13 September 1923. He was however highly critical of the Spanish Army, and his opposition to the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera led to him being relieved of his command and imprisoned. He was released from prison in 1926, but his continued criticism of the government led to his dismissal from the army in 1928. Two years later, Queipo de Llano became the head of the Republican Military Association and collaborated with the National Revolutionary Committee, a group plotting to overthrow King Alfonso XIII. The failure of the revolt forced Queipo de Llano to flee to Portugal. He published in 1930 a book titled El General Queipo de Llano perseguido por La Dictadura where he used haughty expressions about King Alfonso XIII and about Spanish Dictator, close to the King, Miguel Primo de Rivera.

When Alfonso XIII left Spain in April 1931, Queipo de Llano returned to Spain and was given the post of commander of the 1st Military District in Madrid. "He was later appointed head of the military house of Second Spanish Republic President Niceto Alcalá - Zamora (they were in-laws, Queipo's daughter, was married to one of Alcalá - Zamora's sons)."

Queipo de Llano initially supported the Popular Front, and served as chief of a main directorate of the Customs officers, ("Carabineros" in Spanish) from 1934 - 1936. He was critical of some Popular Front policies, including agrarian reforms that penalized the landed aristocracy, the outlawing of the Falange Española, and the granting of political and administrative autonomy to Catalonia.

The Joseph Stalin - controlled Comintern 7th Congress, May 1935 had decided that, in response to the growth of Fascism, popular fronts allying Communist parties with other anti - Fascist parties including Socialist and even bourgeois parties were advisable. Main organizer of the bureaucratic work related to these May – August 1935 digests was Bulgarian communist Georgi Dimitrov, (June 1882 - July 1949), exiled from Bulgaria 1922 - 1944.

In Spain, it was a coalition between leftist republicans and workers' organizations to defend social reforms of the first government (1931 – 1933) of the Second Spanish Republic, and liberate the prisoners, political prisoners according with the front propaganda, held since the Asturian October Revolution, 1934. It included the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Communist Party of Spain (PCE), the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM, independent communist) and the republicans: Republican Left (IR) (led by notary Manuel Azaña), and Republican Union Party (UR), led by Diego Martínez Barrio. This pact was supported by Galician (PG) and Catalan nationalists (such as the Esquerra Party), socialist union Workers' General Union (UGT), and the anarchist trade union, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). Many anarchists who would later fight alongside Popular Front forces during the Spanish Civil War did not support them in the election, urging abstention instead.

The Popular Front won the May 1936 election, forming thus the new Spanish Government. The Popular Front received 4,654,116 votes compared to the opponent combined right wing vote of 4,503,524 votes, confirming thus the traditional, actual, Spanish voting configuration since the 1970s, including adult women, also voting since 1933, albeit the thought of being more conservative, something not even allowed today in many countries, Switzerland for instance, while the women right to vote was conquered in France only in 1944.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning for the sake of political experts, too, that the Popular Front (France) came into effect under Léon Blum, three months later than in Spain and without women voting, but without Communist Party members also as Ministers.

It elected 278 deputies - 99 of which belonged to the Socialists (PSOE) - while the right wing elected 124 deputies - 88 of which belonged to the CEDA. Notary Manuel Azaña was elected President of the Republic on May 1936, but the PSOE did not join the government because of the opposition of socialist leader Francisco Largo Caballero.

Almost immediately, serious troubles on the civic convivence, started to surge, much like the Earth tremors accompanying a volcanic eruption.

General of Division Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was appointed by the legal government of the II Spanish Republic Military Commandant of the Canary Islands, not Military Governor, as stated by not very careful historians, on the 21st February 1936 as published in page 1547, Gaceta de Madrid, number 54, 23 March 1936 by the President of the Republic Niceto Alcalá - Zamora y Torres.

The President was the father - in - law of one of the sons of troublesome, outspoken, very tall, and rather handsome General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, while Don Niceto´s Republican Minister of War was General Carlos Masquelet Lacaci, the supposed motive force behind this decision.

Many historians put forward however, quite often, the idea than rather than a promotion, there was the idea of short - circuiting Francisco Franco, appointing him to some sort of a quite controlled backwater job.

Outspoken Queipo de Llano was widely known by then in many places, Army barracks and drinking houses, because of his "macho" flunterings about this rather silent, quite small, plump and childish voiced colleague, Francisco Franco, till then Joint Chiefs of Staff Head on behalf of the republic, JCS in English, named by him, and only by him, as "Paca, La Culona", i.e., "Little Girl Francisca, Widebottom".

Further, although brother Ramón Franco and even their biological father had been accepted as freemasons in some masonic lodges Francisco Franco was, apparently, refused by his colleagues, his brother and his father, too, several times, developing thus an authentic phobia against both, communist and freemasons, put together in the same bundle, probably ignoring the traditional hate between authoritarian systems, Russia, Germany, Austria and freemasons.

On the social gathering on General Frasnco´s arrival by boat to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 11 March 1936, he received the compliments of General of Brigade Amado Balmes Alonso. General Amado Balmes Alonso's "quite and rather discreet" assassination on 16 July 1936 provided an excuse for General Franco's presence at his funeral and his, apparently, unauthorized straightforward flight with a British hired airplane, De Havilland Dragon Rapide to the Spanish Mainland to be one of the leaders of the Spanish Civil War. Finances for the airplane booking were provided by Juan Ignacio Luca de Tena, 2nd Marquis of Luca de Tena of the Sevilla and Madrid conservative newspaper.

When Alcalá - Zamora was ousted as President on May 10, 1936 and replaced by the left wing Manuel Azaña, Queipo de Llano, along with Generals Emilio Mola, Francisco Franco, and José Sanjurjo, started plotting to overthrow the Popular Front government. He was a leading member of the conspiracy group and used to say with pride that his sports convertible car had covered 20,000 miles in plotting the July 17, 1936 military revolt that led to the Spanish Civil War.

He was the main responsible for the execution of Granada´s region Captain General and Military Governor General Miguel Campins Aura, accused of rather "tepid" behavior on the beginnings of the "Patriotic Rising" against the Republic.

Other high grade Military Officers were also executed besides General Campins, namely Commandant of the Artillery José Loureiro Sellés, 23 July 1936, and Cavalry Colonel Santiago Mateo Fernández, 18 September 1936. General Campins brought to Sevilla from Granada was immediately replaced after 20 July 1936 on "discipline and civic order questions" related to Granada by the rebels from Seville, who appointed as new Civil Governor of Granada, Commandant José Valdés Guzmán, keen on applying harder discipline. He replaced thus Governor César Torres Martínez who saved his life by allegations of obeying the legal Republican Government, punishable by death in many other places.

Campins, chosen as a "Head of Studies" by the General Director of the new Academia General Militar of Zaragoza, Franco himself "could not be spared" of execution according to Queipo de Llano, then known already as "The Viceroy of Seville", even if Franco asked him for forgiveness. It is said Franco would pay him with an equivalent token when he ignored Queipo de Llano's pleads to save his colleague and friend in the Revolt General Domingo Batet Mestres. In this case, he ignored also Franco´s former boss in North Africa, General Miguel Cabanellas Ferrer, on behalf of General Campins.

Further, he was directly involved in the executions at the Castillo de San Felipe, on 9 November 1936, of Generals Enrique Salcedo y Molinuevo and Rogelio Caridad Pita.

Civil Governor of the province of Cádiz between March 1936 and around 20 July 1936, Commandant of Artillery Mariano Zapico y Menéndez - Valdés was also executed on 6 August 1936 together with other civilians and military officers associated to his appointment as a public servant by the legal Spanish Republic.

Lieutenant Colonel of the "Indigenous Regular Forces" number 3 since February 1934 at Ceuta Juan Caballero López, who replaced Lieutenant Colonel Juan Yagüe, was on authorized leave for two months since 9 July, for medical reasons, being executed at Sevilla on 17 July 1936. Gonzalo Queipo de Llano ordered him to be detained for his lack of agreement with the Fascist coup, being executed at the city on 31 July 1936. Don Gonzalo however provided arrangements for the Lieutenant Colonel's widow in order to bring her from Ceuta, crossing by boat the Gibraltar Strait.

What is also certain is that General Manuel Romerales Quintero, the Military Governor of the North African town of Melilla, conquered in 1497 by the Spaniards, five years after the Muslim Spanish town of Granada, was not heading his native indigenous Regulars either at Sevilla, July 1936, or at Malaga, February 1937.

The Head of the Hydro Plains Base at Melilla, 33 years old Captain Vitgilio Leret y Ruiz, located at El Atalayón, paid swiftly with his life his armed opposition to the Military Coup who led to a 41 years suspension of free political elections in Spain between the period May 1936 and the ends of the year 1977. His wife, Spanish - Mexican Carlota O'Neill, spent five years in prison while their two daughters were protected orphans of the New Regime. He was under the orders of the Head of the Spanish Aeronautics, "Africanist" General of Division, Miguel Nuñez de Prado y Susbielas, a founder of UMRA, Union Militar Republicana Antifascista. He was already a Cavalry Lieutenant Colonel c. 1921.

Much more lucky in his dealings and confrontations with Queipo de Llano, Franco, Yagúe, Mola, .... was, probably a freemason, Republican Head General of the Spanish Forces in North Africa Agustín Gómez Morato was put under arrest by the seditious and youngest Africanist Generals who got "only" a 30 years prison sentence for dismissal of their command authority.

Asturian High Commissioner of Spain in Morocco from 13 May to 18 July 1936, Arturo Alvarez - Buylla y Godino fared however much worse, being detained on 18 July 1936 by the then Francoist Colonel Eduardo Sáenz de Buruaga y Polanco, later on a General and much honored afterwards.

Another commandant executed much earlier, 4 August 1936, than Arturo Alvarez - Buylla was General Francisco Franco y Bahamonde's cousin Commandant Ricardo de la Puente y Bahamonde. General Franco himself did not sign the death sentence of his cousin, because Commandant Ricardo´s and General Francisco´s mothers were sisters leaving the job for his assistant, Monarchist General Luis Orgaz Yoldi. His way was clean however to stop near Tetouan Military airport with the hired British De Havilland Dragon Rapide plain while his cousin, a creator of embarrassing problems, was already detained by Saenz de Buruaga.

Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, without "military legal attributions", as an Inspector of the Customs and Duty Tax Officers, benefited at Seville "to put initial order", of the hunting and fire arms and sports weapons capacities of a group of rather wealthy up - and - coming entrepreneurs and land proprietors, new nobility through predating marriages and/or purchased nobility titles, gravitating around Cadiz town Mayor, Ramon de Carranza Sr. and his son Ramon de Carranza Jr..

Another notorious free lance southerner sheriff was Francisco de Paula de Borbón y de la Torre, 4th Duke of Seville, married in 1907 to his first cousin Enriqueta de Borbón y Parade, 4th Duchess of Seville, deceased November 1968, becoming thus 4th Duke Consort of Seville iure uxoris after 1919, after the death of the 3rd Duchess and sister of wife Enriqueta, María Luisa de Borbón y Parade, 3rd Duchesse of Seville, married in London in 1894, no issue. Both came from a 19th Century cadet branch of king Carlos IV of Spain, from the Borbón Royal dynasty.

He was much notorious during the Spanish Civil War, by his expeditious methods with the Sevilla, Marbella and Malaga left wingers and freemasons taken as hostages or political prisoners

Queipo de Llano's role in capture of Seville in the early stages of the war has achieved almost mythical status. Initially, he claimed that he had seized control of the city with only 200 men (later claiming in a radio interview that he had done so with only 15 soldiers). This account of military brilliance became the accepted version of events. Recent research by the historian Paul Preston, however, has shown that the successful capture of Seville was the result of careful planning and the use of at least 4,000 nationalist troops.

General of Division José Fernández de Villa - Abrille y Calivara, one of eight brothers / sisters, son of Spanish Army Colonel of Engineers Faustino and mother Valeriana, was a Hispanic - Filipino General of Brigade till 1933, Head of the II Organic Division at Sevilla in July 1936. His ancestors roots were also Asturian, as those of Gonzalo. Detained by Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, together with a General of Brigade and a Comandant at his commanding Sevilla Office, he was spared of being executed , but was judged in 1939, losing salary and demoted from full military status. He died aged 68, in a very modest lodgers and outcasts pension at Madrid, 1946, his death certificate stating, apparently, he had died of lack of food, hunger or starvation. Other part of this family was/is at Philippines and Argentina nowadays

Appointed commander of the Nationalist Army of the South, General Queipo de Llano's forces launched an Battle of Málaga on Málaga on January 17, 1937, and the city succumbed to the Nationalists on February 8, with the support of of the Corps of Volunteer Troops (Corpo Truppe Volontarie, or CTV), the Italian expeditionary force that fought alongside Franco's forces in the Spanish Civil War since December 1936.

General Mario Roatta, a Colonel till 1935 of the Spyonnage Service SIM, Servizio Informazioni Militari, the Italian Commander - in - Chief of over 10,000 soldiers and officers, had General Luigi Frusci, forged during World War I and at the Second Italo - Ethiopian War as his Deputy Commander. He also carried out propaganda broadcasts during the war.

He was very eager to organise forced labour in the Francoist regions and restart the agricultural production in Andalusia with cheap exports to Europe becoming an important economic factor of the regime.

On 2 February 1938, General Francisco Franco, a.k.a. "Paquita La Culona" according to Don Gonzalo, ruled as Sole Head of the New State and also of the parafascist civilian organization Falange Española y de las JONS, that Zaragoza University trained lawyer and also his brother - in - law, till August 1942, Ramón Serrano Súñer would be the Minister of the Interior and Propaganda. Just a few hours later, radio speeches at Sevilla featuring almost daily General Queipo de Llano between 18 July 1936 and 2 February 1938 were a thing from the inmediate past, including verbal aggresive "macho" style "sexually trended" menaces on left - wingers' families' women, sometimes with forced haircuts and headshavings followed by forced assistance to churches ceremonials and perhaps, sometimes violations and final shootings in the cemeteries.

Clearly enough, the word "authority" is not about removing the lowest instincts of highly stressed people because of a war but about the posession of "moral authority" as real leaders should have being or trying to be above the lowest instincts of populace

One of his sisters, Rosario Queipo de Llano was exchanged from the Cárcel Modelo de Madrid for Women by one of the sons of Socialist leader Francisco Largo Caballero, a former plasterer in his youth, who on 4 September 1936, a few months into the civil war, was designated the 134th Prime Minister and Minister of War till he was obliged to resign on May 17, 1937. whereby prestigious University Medical Professor of Physiology Juan Negrín, also a member of the PSOE, was appointed Prime Minister in his stead. This ransom of sister Rosario with Francisco Largo Calvo, allowed Largo Calvo to go to Mexico, where he died in the exile in 2001.

After the fall of the Republic, he was promoted to lieutenant general. Franco sent him as head of the Spanish Mission to Italy, and he later served as the commander of Seville's military district. His relations with Franco were poor on the whole. He did not like Franco and he hated the King, he was actually a Republican, but never questioned the leadership of the junta. Queipo de Llano died at his country estate near Seville.