Franco called him “Varelita”. Out of complicity, because of the trust they had in each other since they served together in the Rif War, but also with a point of superiority, as a way of reaffirming his authority over him. Varela, on the other hand, addressed Franco as “my General,” but sometimes treated him as if he were “Franquito,” a nickname given to him by his comrades-in-arms during his years at the military academy.
And José Enrique Varela was not just any general within the Franco regime. In 1942, when he ceased his position as Minister of the Army, “Varelita” was one of the most prestigious soldiers of the dictatorship. He had been twice awarded the Laureate Cross of San Fernando for his work in Morocco, was considered a hero after having liberated the castle of Toledo during the Civil War (an action of great symbolic value in the mythology of the victors) and enjoyed a great authority among monarchists and traditionalists. Too much in Franco's eyes?
Varela was the typical Africanist military man. Born in 1891 in San Fernando (Cádiz), he was the son of a Marine Infantry sergeant. José Enrique joined that same regiment when he turned 18. The beginning of his career coincided with the establishment of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. In 1915, after graduating from the Infantry Academy, he was assigned to the regular forces of Melilla.
Varela spent more than a decade fighting in the Rif. They were years of hard military campaigns (he was seriously wounded in 1921, shortly before the Annual disaster), rapid promotions (he reached the rank of colonel) and precious decorations (twice, as we said, the Laureate for war merits). . It was also the period where he forged ideological and emotional ties with Franco and the rest of the Africanists – Sanjurjo, Mola, Yagüe, Queipo de Llano, Millán Astray – who would later conspire against the Republic.
Monarchist, reactionary, anti-parliamentary, ultra-Catholic... Varela did not hesitate to join General Sanjurjo's coup d'état in 1932, being appointed to lead the pronouncement in Cádiz. The failure of the “Sanjurjada” in its main squares, Madrid and Seville, meant that Varela did not even intervene. Still, he was arrested for his involvement in the conspiracy and imprisoned for six months.
During his stay in prison he made contact with the Carlists involved in the uprising. He imbibed his traditionalist ideology and left prison convinced of the strength of Carlism to lead a military uprising. Although he refused to lead a coup, he did agree to secretly supervise the military training of the requetés, the Carlist militias. Under the code name “Tío Pepe”, he traveled several times to Navarra to organize a contingent that, on the eve of the 1936 coup d'état, numbered about 30,000 “red berets”.
Promoted to general during Lerroux's conservative government, Varela actively participated in the conspiracies against the Republic that arose following the Popular Front's victory at the polls. For this reason, he was arrested on April 20, 1936 and exiled to Cádiz. Three months later, when the uprising occurred in Melilla, the general was imprisoned in the Cádiz military prison of the Castillo de Santa Catalina. However, the next day, July 18, he was freed by the rebel military. Immediately afterwards, he led the rebellious troops in Cádiz.
The general had a very outstanding performance in the war. Under the command of Queipo de Llano, the column led by Varela was key in the capture of the Andalusian provinces and in the subsequent repression (he called it “normalization of municipal life”); especially in Ronda, Antequera and the province of Córdoba, where more than 4,000 were shot in the capital alone. Later he would participate in several campaigns (Jarama, Brunete, Teruel, Levante), achieving great renown with the aforementioned liberation of the Alcázar.
Varela ended the war as one of the most renowned officers on the winning side. He was promoted to major general and appointed Minister of the Army. According to data from specialist Gabriel Cardona (The Barefoot Giant. Franco's Army, 2012), Varela controlled a total of 1,020,500 men and managed a budget that accounted for 41.62% of state spending. During his mandate he promoted a fierce administrative persecution, causing forced retirements and expulsions of politically lukewarm soldiers.
Varela's biggest rival in the government was Serrano Suñer, Franco's brother-in-law, Minister of the Interior, Foreign Affairs and president of the Falange. The attempts of the Germanophile Suñer to approach the Axis powers during the Second World War and to fascistize the new Francoist State, taking power away from the Army and the Church, clashed head-on with the ideas of the Anglophile, monarchist and Catholic Varela.
However, the Army Minister's defense of Spain's neutrality was not only for ideological or military reasons. Valera was one of the main beneficiaries of the policy of bribery to senior Army officers promoted by the British government to prevent Spain from entering the war. According to declassified documentation, the general earned two million dollars at the time.
An example of the confrontation between Varela and Suñer was the organization of the Blue Division. Prompted by Franco and Falange's brother-in-law, the general successfully pressured Franco to limit the unit's Falangist influence and place it under military command. In fact, he never called it by its popular name, but by its official one: Spanish Volunteer Division.
The dispute between both ministers was resolved on August 16, 1942. That day, Varela presided with his wife (Casilda Ampuero, a prominent Carlist activist belonging to the Biscayan upper bourgeoisie) at the traditional mass for the fallen Requetés in the Civil War that It was held in the Begoña basilica in Bilbao. The arrival of a group of Falangists caused a brawl that ended with a “blue shirt” throwing a grenade, causing dozens of injuries.
The incident, wrongly reported by Varela as an attack against him, unleashed a serious government crisis resolved by Franco with a Solomonic decision: both Varela, who had resigned, and Suñer, were dismissed from their positions.
During the following months, Varela aligned himself with the timid opposition that the most monarchist military had formed against Franco. In 1943, coinciding with the change of direction of the war in favor of the allies, the former minister personally delivered to the dictator a letter signed by him and other generals in which they asked him to open a transition process to restore the monarchy.
Two years later, when relations between Franco and the candidate to the throne Don Juan de Borbón were practically broken, Varela was appointed High Commissioner of Spain in Morocco. An important position, practically a viceroyalty, but which can also be interpreted as a covert exile. Shortly after joining his position, the general suffered a serious setback. He was admitted to the Tetouan hospital due to a strong fever and came out with a fatal diagnosis: he suffered from leukemia. The general would die six years later, on March 24, 1951.
Varela received several posthumous titles. Franco promoted him to captain general and named him Marquis of Varela de San Fernando. This noble title is currently in the process of being suppressed in compliance with the Democratic Memory Law (it had been inherited by the general's grandson, José Enrique Varela y Urquijo). As part of this process, in 2022 the equestrian statue of the bilaureate that presided over the San Fernando town hall square was removed.
Furthermore, in 2008, José Enrique Varela was included in the list of 35 senior officials of the Franco regime accused by Judge Baltasar Garzón, for the crimes of illegal detention and crimes against humanity committed during the Civil War and the first Franco regime. The general was not prosecuted as he died.
